


You Were There First

by JudgeCoffee



Series: The Lucky Ones [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Beads, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Conspiracy, Dom/sub, Dream Sex, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Handcuffs, M/M, Major Character Injury, Omnic Crisis, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Overstimulation, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Secret Relationship, Semi-Public Sex, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-04 09:22:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 52,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13361565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JudgeCoffee/pseuds/JudgeCoffee
Summary: With the Omnic Crisis raging, a newly formed Overwatch tries to curb the tide of destruction. But Commander Reyes has more than one thing on his mind, from his secret relationship with another member of the team, to questions with his past at SEP that he can't escape...





	1. Happy Birthday

There was something about the face Jack made when he was in the throes of passion that Gabriel found utterly irresistible. It wasn't exactly an attractive face, but it was the kind of expression someone only wore when they were either in a spectacular amount of pain or overwhelmed with pleasure. With Jack, it was usually a mix of the two.

This was a new game, and it had taken a few weeks for Gabriel to decide exactly how he wanted to play it. It had started with handcuffs, always a good way to guarantee getting Jack in the mood. He could feel the way Jack's muscles twisted and tensed, trapped with nowhere to go. His skin was hot and he was hard as hell.

Of course, Jack _could_ just tear through the cuffs if he wanted to. He had, by accident, a few times. It gave Jack something to focus on so that he didn't completely lose himself. Confined, but still with a measure of control.

When they had started with SEP,they hadn't really had their own things, but with Overwatch they had been able to invest in some toys. They could also finally lock their doors, which was an added bonus. Soundproof rooms were even better, since unless Jack was gagged, he tended to be on the noisy side.

Everything else Gabriel had found for them, since Jack didn't know much about what he wanted until he tried it. There also wasn't a hell of a lot Jack didn't like, so it was easy and fun to rule things out. Gabriel didn't mind. He wasn't the one who liked pain, Jack was, and as long as he got to watch Jack, he was down for just about anything.

"Stay still, Jackie," he whispered, working his fingers between Jack's legs. "Only good boys get what they ask for."

"I can't, I _can't_..." Jack tried to speak, but his voice was breaking up.

Gabriel had already made him come once. Hell, _he'd_ come once already, buried to the hilt in Jack's ass. He wasn't sure if he would again or not, but he didn't want to risk getting too carried away in the middle and ruin the game. That would have felt like losing, even though, with these games, if everything went off without a hitch they both won.

Tilting Jack's chin up, Gabriel kissed him, hard, biting his lip and making him whimper. Jack had a nice ring of hickies along his shoulders already, but no one would see them with all the turtlenecks he wore. The rest of Overwatch assumed it was to hide the massive scar along Jack's neck, which was a convenient excuse. Jack’s actual shirts were practically vacuum sealed, so Gabriel still got to enjoy the fun bits, while Jack got to conveniently hide the embarrassing parts.

"Tell me what you can't do, Jackie," Gabriel said, dipping his fingers in the lube beside the bed. He slicked the anal beads with it, letting Jack catch his breath. Gabriel was almost through fitting them inside his lover, and he was taking his time with it. After all, the goal was to see how quickly he could get Jack to cum twice - maybe three times if he felt like pushing his luck. Which meant he had a certain pain-to-pleasure ratio that had to be measured, because even in a fun context everyone had a limit. Jack's limit was just higher than most. Whether that was because he was a super soldier or because he'd always had a kinky side was up for debate.

“If you don’t tell me, I can’t fix the problem…” Gabriel said, feeling whimsical as he started to push in the next bead. Jack didn’t really respond, he just sobbed again, fingers digging into the cuffs, which creaked with the strain. “Careful, Jack. I’ll make you pay for new ones.”

“Gabe, please, stop… stop I’m-“ Jack whimpered as Gabriel reached out, running a finger down Jack’s shaft, the touch feather light. His back arched into it, but Gabriel quickly pulled away, making Jack sob in desperation.

No use of the safe word, though. It had been about six months since Jack had needed to tap out, which Gabriel chalked up to careful planning and fun experimentation. Build up was important too. Not trying to do too much at once.

“One more, Jack. Then we’ll see how far I can push you,” Gabriel whispered, pressing just a little further. A little harder. He crooked his finger, pushing the last ball just inside Jack’s ass, feeling as it pressed up against the others.

Jack let out another desperate, sobbing breath as his legs stretched out, toes curling and spasming.

Gabriel kept watching, licking his lips. He loved seeing Jack completely wrecked like this. Jack also seemed to love _being_ like this, which Gabriel didn’t personally understand, but, hey, if it made Jack happy, then why not? It wasn’t as though he got nothing out of it.

He let Jack keep twisting for a while, trying to move to accommodate the filled space inside him. “Please… Gabe, I can’t… keep going… please help… help me…”

“Now that’s some pretty begging.” Gabriel grinned, leaning in and licking Jack’s nipple. Then he bit down hard - and used the distraction to grab hold of the beads, quickly pulling them out and making sure Jack got the full effect of each and every one.

Jack cried out when he came, and it would have been an audible scream even with the thick walls if Gabriel hadn’t clamped a hand over Jack’s mouth. The other clear sound was the handcuffs breaking, which Gabriel was willing to consider an acceptable loss. Jack’s whole body shook, tremors making shivers run over Gabriel’s skin as he held onto him. It was the prettiest picture of all when Jack came, hips jerking a few desperate times before finished.

Gabriel chuckled, pulling his hand away and letting Jack settle down a bit. A lost pair of handcuffs… Jack owed him some money for those, but he’d probably pay up. Jack was good like that. It was good that the anal beads had done their job well enough, though. At least something was durable.

“Fucking… fuck…” Jack mumbled, catching his breath on the bed. He looked at the cuffs briefly before he closed his eyes, laughing weakly. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to lose another pair. No self control I guess.” He rubbed his face, moving to lay on his side. “You could really drive a man insane with that mouth, you realize that?”

“Even with the beard?” Gabriel chuckled, resting his hand on Jack’s hip.

Jack snorted, shivering again as the last of the tremors started to fade out. “I joke _one_ time about how thick your beard hair is, and now I’m going to suffer for it the rest of my life.” He twitched a little as Gabriel’s fingers dipped lower, playing with his rim.

“Hm… Gabe don’t… really think I can go for round three. Seriously,” Jack mumbled, before gasping when Gabriel pressed a finger inside.

“You sure?” Gabriel said, smiling and nuzzling against Jack’s neck, moving his finger. He was pushing it, but he couldn’t resist trying. “I bet you could stand for a little more fooling around. I know how much you like to be used, and I haven’t even had a chance to- “

“ _Basta_ ,” Jack said, and Gabriel sighed, pulling back. “Sorry, didn’t mean to disappoint you.” Jack raised his head a little, reaching out and resting his hand on Gabriel’s chest. “You can’t _seriously_ be ready to go after all that?”

“Nah, not really,” Gabriel said, flopping back on the bed. “Just taking advantage of a quiet moment.”

“You’re ridiculous.” Jack laughed, running his hand up Gabriel’s chest, “But, hey, that’s why I love-“ He stopped. “This.”

Gabriel resisted the temptation to say ‘nice save’, but he let it go, drawing Jack against him instead. “Yeah, well, let me get these cuffs off.” He reached into his drawer, pulling out the keys and undoing the broken cuffs.

They’d been dancing around the L word for months. Maybe longer, but it had been… a close call? Gabriel wasn’t even sure how to describe it, or why it mattered whether or not they said it. There was no spoken agreement to say they didn’t, or couldn’t.

They hadn’t talked about it at all.

Jack massaged his wrists, closing his eyes and sighing. “Thanks. This was… the best. Really.”

“Good,” Gabriel said, leaning over and kissing his swollen lips, before moving to nuzzle against Jack’s neck, kissing a bruise. “Happy birthday.”

“…birth-?” Jack laughed, rolling onto his chest. “Fucking hell. I forgot.”

“You forgot that you’re finally allowed to drink in your home country? Damn, your priorities have changed.” Gabriel grinned, giving Jack another squeeze before he got up and headed to the bathroom to wipe himself off and wash his hands. “Maybe I’ll tell Torb that we’re calling off our night of celebration drinking.”

“Gabe, I’ve been drinking here since we _started_.” Jack rolled his eyes before yawning and nestling into the bed.

“Yeah, but now it’s official, and I don’t have to lie to your mom and tell her I’m making sure you behave.” Gabriel chuckled, watching Jack move in the mirror. A recent wound on his leg seemed to have healed up nicely, which would mean he was back in the field shortly. That was both a good and a bad thing.

Good for the world. Good for Gabriel to have someone he trusted completely to have his back… bad for the amount of worrying he was going to do, because the idiot Golden Boy of Overwatch seemed to have a face that attracted bullets.

“You’re still going to have to lie to my mom and tell her I’m behaving.” Jack laughed, closing his eyes. “Unless you want to tell her what you do to me, which I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Yeah, like you wouldn’t enjoy me stringing you up and fucking you for the world to see.” Gabriel snorted, coming back over and kissing Jack’s forehead before handing him a towel.

Jack turned red, taking the towel and wiping himself down with a sigh. “You’re an asshole.”

“And you’re a dirty slut, birthday boy.” Gabriel smirked, leaning in and biting Jack’s shoulder, making him shiver when Gabriel’s lips brushed the bruise he’d left. “I’ve got a meeting. I’ll be back later, though. For the rest of your present.”

Jack leaned away, laughing and giving Gabriel a quick once-over. “Shower first. You still smell like sex. I’m taking a birthday nap - wake me up when you get back.”

~~

“The most recent attacks are coming from the Yukon, but we haven’t found the exact source,” Adawe said, bringing up the display for Gabriel to look over. “They’re getting more devious with their launches, but the most obvious attack point will likely be Vancouver now. Smaller strike forces have been seen along the Alaskan border, but there’s no sign that they plan a large scale attack on American soil yet.”

“ _Yet_ being the operative word here…” Gabriel said, rubbing his chin. “There’s a long way between Whitehorse and Vancouver, but they have plenty of mountain cover… they can move a big group, and fast. Especially if they can launch.”

A launch meant Titans in the middle of a city before anyone could make a move. The Omnics would travel with their deadliest weapons disassembled to avoid detection, then have mobile Bastion units and OR-14s rebuild and attack.

“Goal seems simple enough - we find the Omnium in the Yukon and dismantle it. That will cut off any resupply, and then we can have a Canadian-American joint operation defend Vancouver,” Gabriel said, tapping his fingers along his arm. “Trick is knowing how much time we have…”

“Which cuts us off at the knees.” Adawe sighed, rubbing her chin as she paced behind her desk. “We’ll need an aerial search before we can put you four on the ground. I’ll talk to Lindholm about it.”

“No need, he’s on his way now. I figured he would need his expertise on this. Liao is still in China, but we should be able to get some additions…” Gabriel tapped on the map, looking thoughtful. “We’ll need to get to Vancouver, discreetly, then head up into the mountains.” He glanced up at her, raising an eyebrow. “And I do mean _discreetly_. The UN can’t be blaring where we’re going, or we wind up with another Dubai.”

Adawe sighed, crossing her arms. “I’m not having this conversation again. I’m not their keeper, and not every person there is going to be discreet if they can be seen to do some good.”

“Politics. Well, make sure whoever we’re dealing with shuts their damn mouth and maybe we can keep some people from getting killed instead of telegraphing where we’re headed.” It wasn’t just about the gash on Jack’s leg that had come from Dubai and trying to defend it - or at least he told himself that. There had been millions of people in Dubai. Not just thousands. _Millions_.

“You still won, Gabriel,” Adawe said quietly, leaning up against her desk. “You disabled the Omnium, you destroyed the God Program living there… they’re being pushed back. A year ago, hell, six _months_ ago I didn’t think it was possible. But we’re not just playing defense anymore. We can do this.”

“Been listening to Jack’s speeches again?” Gabriel smirked a little. She’d basically lifted some of his lines.

Adawe smiled back, rolling her eyes. “He gives a good speech. Not as enthusiastic as Reinhardt, but I think we could all stand to be a little calmer. Maybe you should try giving the speech instead.”

“Nah, he looks better on camera. And also, I don’t care.” Gabriel shrugged, before glancing up when there was a knock on the door. “Torbjorn?”

“Aye. Who else would be polite enough to knock around here?” Torbjorn said, walking inside, rubbing at his chin.

Gabriel and Adawe stared for a moment, until he finally looked up at them.

“What?”

“Did you shave?” Gabriel asked, baffled.

“That’s none of your damn business,” Torbjorn said, going to a chair and taking a seat, still rubbing his clean shaven face.

“It’s Jack’s birthday. You had better not have a date.” Gabriel frowned.

“We have to go to Canada _tomorrow_ ,” Adawe said, crossing her arms.

“I _do_ have a date,” Torbjorn said, squaring off with Gabriel, arms crossed. “Why, you jealous that you have to spend your night trying to outdrink a high school jock while I get to spend time with a real woman? Ha!”

“Yeah, that high school jock nearly lost a leg protecting your tiny _ass_.” Gabriel glared down at him. “This is a team building exercise. Non-optional. Adawe, you should come too. That way no one will realize for at least a day that we’re not here.”

“What, because they’ll think the grand protectors of Earth are hungover?” Torbjorn asked, as always completely unmoved by Gabriel sizing him up. “You know I love the lad, but a man has needs, Reyes. I can’t exactly turn down a date.”

Gabriel smirked. “So bring her with us. Or are you worried that someone’s big blue eyes will bring her over to the American side of things?”

“Hah, hardly.” Torbjorn rolled his eyes. “Between you tapping your foot in the corner and Jack’s so-called ‘dancing’ I don’t have anything to worry about. I have more to be concerned about that damn blond blue eyed _German_.”

Gabriel chuckled. “Right. The lady’s man.”

“With the hair, and the eyes, and the ‘oh I’m so polite and gentlemanly, and could protect you with my big strong arms’.” Torbjorn scowled deeply. “Have you seen the poster? Bleh. They’ll be all over him if we go out, and he’ll be _smiling_ and-”

“Yes, okay, Christ I get it,” Gabriel said, holding up his hands. “Just bring her. I’ll have Ana make sure that Reinhardt behaves himself.”

“Tell her to bat her eyes at him a few times. He gets flustered when she does that.” Torbjorn chuckled.

“Okay, can you two _please_ focus on the task at hand. Canada,” Adawe said, huffing with annoyance. “We have more important things to be concerned about right now than Jack’s birthday and Torbjorn’s dating life.”

“Right. Torbjorn, we’ll need something we can do for surveillance that the Omnics can’t track or hijack. We’re looking for an Omnium somewhere in the Rocky Mountains between the Yukon and Alaska,” Gabriel said, stroking his beard. It was so weird to even _see_ Torbjorn clean-shaven. “Doable, yes or no?”

“Possibly. Covert is something we have well in hand, but most are detectable by the typical Omnic models. We’ve been working on ways to hide from them, and I have some prototypes, but no promises,” Torbjorn said, shaking a finger at him. “I’m not a miracle worker.” He turned his finger to Adawe. “And you too. I’m not going to hear anything from you involving the word _deadline_. These things take time.”

Awade shook her head. “Honestly, it’s a miracle we get anything done.”

“And if we were all business a hundred percent of the time, we would be having a serious psychotic break. We’ve been going at this almost two years, Gabriela,” Gabriel said, calling her by her first name, a rare event for the two of them when it tended to get a little confusing. “Birthdays are just about the only fun we get to have these days.”

Adawe crossed her arms, but Gabriel already knew he’d won the uphill battle. “Fine, but hungover or not, you’re going to be on a plane to Vancouver at six am tomorrow morning. So try and behave yourselves a little.” She pointed at Torbjorn. “You’d better be able to work on the plane. Now, can you please get out of my office so I can get some real work done?”

“What, not coming to the party?” Torbjorn asked, going to the door and smirking over his shoulder at her.

“Yeah, we’ll miss your rousing reminders not to behave like children.” Gabriel grinned, following him.

Adawe flipped them off. “No one likes a smartass.”

“I don’t know, wait until you see my date.” Torbjorn chuckled.

 _Nothing compared to mine_ , Gabriel thought to himself, patting Torbjorn’s shoulder as he went.

~~

Jack had slipped in and out of sleep for the better part of two hours when he finally looked at the clock and felt awake enough to not just fall back into sleeping. He rolled onto his front and hugged his pillow – except it wasn’t his, it was Gabriel’s. It even smelled like him. So did the sheets. So did the room.

It wasn’t like back in the days of SEP, hiding from each other and making love on the couch…

Love.

He groaned, rolling back over onto his back. _Idiot_. He’d acted like a lovesick baby, and Gabriel had obviously seen right through him. _You’re in the middle of a war and you fall for the first guy who can make you cum twice in a morning by sticking things in you_ -

There was a knock at the door. “Birthday boy? You had better be awake.”

“Yeah, Ana, I’m up!” he called, sitting bolt upright and swinging out of bed before running for the door, closing Gabriel’s door behind him. He dashed through the living room to his own half of the suite, grabbing at the first pair of pants he saw. “Don’t come in! I need pants!”

“Oh, and God forgive me if I should see you without your pants,” Ana said, sarcasm dripping from her voice so thickly that Jack could almost taste it. “Perhaps I will be struck down immediately if I open the door-“

“Don’t you dare!” Jack laughed, shaking his head. He managed to get his pants on, then quickly grabbed hold of his shirt. The last thing he needed was Ana getting an eyeful of the hickies he’d gotten over the past few weeks. Especially not the fresh ones, which from a quick glance in the mirror had turned a deep purple. _Bastard needs to get a new oral fixation_.

At the same time, Lord, Jack hoped Gabriel wouldn’t any time soon.

He finally got to the door, smoothing back his hair and managing a smile. “Hey, see? Ready to go. Pants and everything.”

Ana chuckled, finishing tying off the thick braid she’d plaited her hair into before tossing it over her shoulder. “I take it you forgot we were sparring this morning, Jack. It’s eleven - you’re usually awake by six. Did Gabriel knock you unconscious? Did he break your alarm?”

“I… no.” Jack laughed nervously. “I was feeling a little under the weather this morning, and he said I could take the time off. You know. Birthday privileges, while he and Adawe plan the next move.”

“You can _get_ sick?” Ana raised an eyebrow. “Maybe we will have to take you to the doctor after all. Have you inoculated against these dangerous Canadian diseases we’re likely to come across. Like freezing to death.”

“Yeah, I’m really looking forward to you and Gabriel bitching non-stop about how cold you are. Do I have to get you a beanie to match his?” Jack grinned, lightly punching her shoulder before brushing past her, hoping he didn’t smell.

“I am only saying it would be nice if the Omnics continued to attack warmer countries. I am a delicate woman, Jack,” Ana said with mock offense, putting her hand over her heart for emphasis. “I am meant for a strong dry heat.”

“Yeah, I bet that’s why you and Gabriel are the official shut-ins of Overwatch.” Jack smiled, heading towards the training room. “You coming to the get-together tonight? Gabriel’s paying.”

“Heh, paying for you perhaps. I doubt I shall be so lucky,” Ana said, shaking her head. “I doubt I’ll drink much, as it turns out we’ll be leaving first thing tomorrow. From what I’ve heard you’ll be back on active duty - no more sermonizing for the children.”

“What, you mean the media stuff?” Jack sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Honestly? I can hardly wait to stop doing it. It makes me feel more nervous than rushing into a Bastion pit.”

“You don’t show it, which means they’ll keep making you do it,” Ana said. “You should take a page out of Gabriel’s book, make Adawe do it.”

“I tried, she’s persistent.” Jack shrugged, sighing and stretching his shoulder out. “They keep calling me ‘the golden boy of Overwatch’ and all that nonsense… I don’t know how I’m supposed to say no to that.”

“You’re a pushover, dear. A lot of heart, but your spine could use some work.” Ana said fondly, wrapping her braid over her head and pinning it in place. “You should do what we talked about. Apply for the US Sergeant’s Exam. You’ll learn a lot - it will be good for you.”

“I need three years before I can do that,” Jack said, dismissing it. “And I mean… technically Overwatch isn’t US military. And there are a ton of hoops I’d have to jump through.”

“You keep looking for reasons to say ‘no’, Jack. There’s your problem,” Ana said, opening the door to the gym. “You need to move forward with your life. Especially since we never know when we’re all going to drop dead.”

Jack sighed, following her inside. She wasn’t wrong. He couldn’t even rouse the backbone to tell Gabriel he loved him when the world was basically ending.

“Yeah, Ana. I’ll work on it.”

~~

The booming music from the club was just about the only thing that could be heard over Reinhardt’s voice as he laughed bashfully at something that Ana had said to him. Torbjorn was, Gabriel noted, right. All Ana had to do was say a few words to the German and bat her eyelashes, and he was wrapped around her finger.

Interesting.

Torbjorn was also devastatingly correct about Jack’s dancing, which had somehow managed to get even worse. Gabriel was trying to blame the bad leg, but with their enhancements and the time off he’d had, that really wasn’t going to work. He couldn’t even say that it was because Jack lacked the ability to move quickly or gracefully, because he _absolutely_ could. The corn-fed Ohio boy just had absolutely no sense of rhythm. At all. And God knew, Reinhardt, Ana, and Torbjorn’s date were _all_ trying to teach him.

“See, what did I tell you? Ina-“

“Ingrid,” Torbjorn corrected him.

“ _Ingrid_ is having a great time,” Gabriel said, tapping his beer bottle against Torbjorn’s and taking a sip. “She’s way too hot for you.”

“She likes a man with brains,” Torbjorn replied, taking a swig of his own beer. “And a man with a sense of rhythm.”

“So, Reinhardt _is_ still in the game.” Gabriel snickered, waving to the bartender to ask for another round.

In the two-ish years since Overwatch had taken root in Sweden, they had really only gone to one bar. “Rouge” wasn’t exactly private, but it was close to the UN, and with so many politicians and military offers coming and going, no one really disturbed “the world’s heroes”. And if anyone did get too pushy, Gus the bartender and his merry band of bouncers advertised their discretion.

That was rare, and more likely to be reporters than some overly ambitious university student, but it did happen. Gabriel didn’t mind. The risk was worth it to be able to get outside every now and then.

Torbjorn scoffed, taking another beer from Gus. “Well, I’m going to go and start dancing before Morrison hurts himself. Are you going to join us?”

“I don’t dance. Tell Jack his next beer is on me,” Gabriel said, taking a seat and tapping his foot to the music.

Watching the others did make him smile. Reinhardt offering Ana his hand and attempting to show Jack how to sway, Torbjorn and his much taller date looking each other over, even the shy people at every corner of the room who wanted to approach but couldn’t get up the nerve to do it… it made for a good distraction from the fear that crept in.

Even if Torbjorn could pull off a surveillance unit that could go over the Omnics undetected, that still meant that the team would need to be deployed into a frozen wasteland. They would be fighting in waist deep snow against an enemy that could easily attach treads to make the journey easier, with limited supplies and backup miles away-

“You look like you have something on your mind,” Jack said, seemingly materializing next to him. “Did you even see me waving at you, or were you too busy brooding?”

“Yeah, just wait until you get command over something. That’ll put some worry-lines on your forehead, boy scout,” Gabriel said, taking another swig of his beer. “Need another drink?”

“That nervous, huh?” Jack asked, flagging Gus down for another drink. He smiled, pointing at Gabriel. “He’s paying. Thanks, Gus.”

“Dubai was a shitshow,” Gabriel said, downing the last of his beer.

“Not your fault,” Jack said, sipping his beer. “They knew we were coming. That won’t happen this time.”

“Ever the optimist, Jack,” Gabriel said, laughing and setting his empty bottle aside before standing. “Come on, bring your beer.” He waved for Jack to follow him.

Jack did as he was told, bringing his beer and sipping at it. “Where are we going?”

“Part two of your birthday present,” Gabriel said, opening the door to the washroom and pushing Jack inside.

Jack stumbled, looking back at Gabriel. “You’re kidding, you’re really-?”

Gabriel locked the door behind them before taking Jack’s shoulders and pushing him up against the wall. He took the beer out of Jack’s hand and set it on the sink, but he didn’t give him a chance to talk. He left one of Jack’s hands free, in case he wanted to tap out, but Gabriel doubted he would.

He pulled back, but only long enough to put his hand over Jack’s mouth. His free hand went down between Jack’s legs, squeezing just to be sure he was hard. As usual, it didn’t take much to get him ready to go.

Gabriel shifted his hand, letting his fingers play with Jack through his pants. He could feel Jack biting at his hand, moaning loudly, the sound safely hidden by the pounding music outside. Gabriel smiled, undoing Jack’s fly one-handed and pushing his pants down. Messy, and not as coordinated as Gabriel could do horizontally, but he could still maneuver Jack’s underwear just under his balls to get him exposed. Vulnerable.

He can almost feel Jack’s lips mouthing his name on his skin, and Gabriel wished, not for the first time, that he could get it up before a mission. Making Jack cum was its own catharsis, though. Having complete control over the things he could make Jack feel, or beg for, kept a certain amount of sanity in his life.

With his fingers around Jack’s cock, it was a quick step up to Jack being fully hard. A thumb stroking his foreskin had him practically screaming. Gabriel knew he was going to have a bite mark in his palm when Jack finished, but none of that mattered when his partner’s cock was leaking precum into his hand.

Gabriel slowed down, making an effort to draw it out a little. He wished he had five extra hands to touch every part of Jack, but he kept one affixed to Jack’s mouth. He would give Jack a chance to squirm and beg silently for more, while it sank in for him that they were surrounded by people, that anyone could hear them if they _really_ listened.

“Do you remember if I locked the door?” Gabriel whispered in Jack’s ear, letting their little scene play out. “I don’t think I did. I should go and check-“

He pulled his hand away, just long enough for Jack to say “don’t” before Gabriel slammed him back into the wall, nearly knocking the beer off the counter. He felt Jack’s knees go weak before he saw it, and he moved his leg against the wall as support, making sure Jack wouldn’t collapse.

Jack scrambled, grabbed the sink to support himself and Gabriel’s arm with the other hand. Not tapping out. Two taps for out. Even though Gabriel played rough, he played by the rules, and sometimes he worried that if he didn’t Jack would still come begging for more.

“Is that what you want? For everyone to see what you really are?” Gabriel whispered in Jack’s ear, leaning down and smelling along his neck.

He could hear Jack whimper, feel the little twitch of his hips to try and get more contact. His cock was rock solid now, red and swollen, just begging for a little more. Gabriel would say that sometimes Jack made it a little too easy, but when his eyes were rolled up in the back of his head and he was losing his mind just from a little creative touching and the right atmosphere? Easy was fun.

By the time Gabriel was done teasing Jack with his hand, squeezing his head and stroking his balls, his partner’s dick was practically slick with sweat and precum. He knew Jack wouldn’t be able to take much more, so that was when was when Gabriel finally slid down, dragging his hand from Jack’s mouth down to his chest for balance. Then Gabriel took him in his mouth, and, with one hard suck, made Jack cum so hard he screamed - at least until he had the wherewithal to bite his own palm instead of Gabriel’s to shut himself up.

What Gabriel really needed to do was get Jack a fucking ball gag.

When it was over, Jack leaned heavily on the sink, catching his breath before looking down at Gabriel with a grin. “That… was a dirty trick.”

“Was that a pun?” Gabriel asked, standing up before kissing Jack, letting him taste himself. It was inoffensive and they’d done it before, but maybe from the mood Jack was just especially into it, because he leaned into the kiss and pushed his tongue into Gabriel’s mouth.

Gabriel kept him pinned to the wall, half from worry that he might fall over, and half just because he wanted to. Because he liked having Jack all to himself, even for a ten or fifteen minute handjob in a dirty public restroom.

Jack pulled back after a minute, looking a little dazed. “It wasn’t a pun. Can’t a guy just have some fun on his birthday without you getting in his business?”

“I like being deep in your business.” Gabriel grinned, slapping his ass. “Let me straighten you up. Make you presentable.”

Jack snickered. “Whatever you say, Commander.”

On their way back towards the dance floor, only Ana seemed to have been looking for them.

“You boys get into trouble?” she asked, eyebrow delicately raised.

“As much trouble as you can get in,” Gabriel said, patting Jack’s back. “Come on, we have a boy who needs to learn to dance.”

Ana walked a few paces behind, chuckling, until she abruptly paused.

Gabriel glanced over his shoulder at her. “Something up?”

“Hm?” Ana looked up, then shook her head. “No. Nothing. Come on, we have to get back - they’ll be wondering where we wandered off to.”

Gabriel nodded, walking ahead, but he could feel Ana watching him. That meant he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d missed something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy here we go again.
> 
> Hi guys, I'm back! This work will be around *SHRUG* long, and while I can't promise an update schedule due to current full time employment, I'm going to do my damnest to get something together to keep it going.
> 
> In terms of story, if you haven't read my previous work "When We Were Young", there are going to be a lot of tie-in's related to that in this story, so I would recommend going back and checking that out first.
> 
> As always, big shout out to my amazing beta Aisu who somehow continues to put up with my atrocious grammar and run on sentences.
> 
> Questions? Comments? Concerns? Find me over at Tumblr! http://youredgedadsareshowing.tumblr.com/


	2. Cold

**Chapter Two:**

Samuel Simeon was both a typical and an atypical public servant, as far as Gabriel could tell from the five minutes he had known the man. Their government “liaison” wasn’t military, but something about him screamed that he was an up-and-comer even without that bonus. He had to be, if he was the Overwatch escort. He was professional, polite, and stone-faced.

The bright side was that he also seemed to give a shit about the requests Gabriel had made of him, which was unusual in itself. _Must be a Canadian thing_.

“I can understand your reluctance to involve any media attention, and the Prime Minister agrees with you. After what happened in Dubai, discretion is preferable.” Samuel nodded, crossing his arms. “That said, we do have a responsibility to the public. If there are Omnics in the mountains around Vancouver this time of year - well, we have tourists, local ski groups, the Olympic team for snowboarding and skiing… and not to mention the communities that live around the base of the mountains, and more than a couple of highly-isolated reserves.” As he continued the list, he went to settle behind his desk.

His desk, or the desk that had been provided for him? Gabriel couldn’t be sure just yet. The room didn’t have a name on the door, unusual for a government facility, and it wasn’t decorated. No diplomas on the walls, no pictures of family or friends, nothing personal at all except a small statue on the desk. It looked like some kind of bird, in a Native American style, though Gabriel wasn’t about to claim any kind of expertise in the area. It struck Gabriel as the sort of thing that might indicate Samuel was considering taking up the desk on a more permanent basis, but hadn’t really committed to it yet.

It reminded him of the first few weeks after he and Jack had moved into the main Overwatch base in Switzerland. After their time with SEP, the idea of being able to decorate had been foreign, to say the least. Neither had wanted to take the first step in personalizing their quarters.

Jack’s mother had broken the stalemate a week in by sending some pictures of the farm, including one photo Gabriel had come to love where his partner’s parents had done the American Gothic pose in front of their house.

Gabriel had that one framed despite Jack’s protests that it was “too weird”. After that, it had turned into a bit of a free-for-all clash of styles. Jack’s look was that of a corn-fed country boy jock with a secret love of poetry, and Gabriel had his own - in his opinion - goth chic look.. His latest treasure though, a present from Jack at Christmas, was “some real goddamn Goth poetry, Gabriel” in Jack’s words. It was a collection of Edgar Allen Poe that he’d become addicted to.

It was the only personal item he’d brought with him, besides his clothes, which made him think that Samuel’s only personal item probably meant something. Not exactly Gabriel’s business, but after what had happened in Dubai he liked to know the public servants and politicians he was dealing with.

They played a different kind of game than he did.

“So, what’s your suggestion?” Gabriel asked, lounging in his chair, sizing the other man up. “We tell everyone, they panic, they blow it, the Omnics abandon being subtle and launch an attack before we’re ready, and we have another Dubai. We don’t tell them, we risk a lot of innocent people getting caught in the cross-fire while the Omnics try and cloak that they’re coming.”

“You know, the Prime Minister asked me the same question. I grew up here, and what I know is what happens when there is an extreme cold weather alert,” Samuel said, tapping lightly on the table. “We’ve had unnaturally bad snowfall. Cases of avalanches. Perfectly legitimate reason to pull people out. Happened a few times when I was a kid and the weather got worse.”

“How many people would we have to fool for that?” Gabriel asked, though he didn’t think it was the worst plan he’d ever heard.

Samuel opened his mouth, then closed it as he thought it out. He didn’t have to. Gabriel already had an idea.

“No, don’t worry. It’ll work.” He went to the door, opening it and poking his head out of the room.

The team was sitting outside, being glanced at by a few embassy members, but no one who shouldn’t have been looking was present. Things had tightened up in the last few years. Overwatch turned heads in the papers and on the ground. Reinhardt was one of many dead giveaways, but Jack was on the news frequently – and no matter how much he tried to deny it, he was a handsome devil who turned heads – and Ana was, well, Ana.

Gabriel was gay, not blind.

“Torbjorn, if you could fuck with weather predictions, how much time would it take to make all of Western Canada believe they’re going to be neck deep in freezing rain?” Gabriel asked,  looking down.

Torbjorn glanced past him at Samuel, then back at him. “Couple of hours, maybe? I’d have to build a goddamn broadcasting machine to mess with satellite signals, but it’s doable. Why would I want to?”

“Because we need a reason to evacuate them that won’t cause suspicion. Since they’re like you lot, I figure waist deep snow isn’t going to cover it. Even if it does go way over your head.” Gabriel smirked.

Torbjorn rolled his eyes. “Do you really think you’re being original with these?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No, not especially,” Gabriel said, smiling. “I’m just intimidated by the brilliance you bring to the table, and will surely be using to get this alert out _fucking quickly_.”

“Flatterer.” Torbjorn smirked, before looking back to Samuel. “Where can I set up?”

“We have rooms available for you.” Samuel nodded, taking his phone and making a call.

“You think the Omnics will buy it?” Ana asked, looking Samuel up and down with her sharp gaze. The look included a quick glance at his ass when he turned away from her, which was a line of sight both Gabriel and Jack followed.

The man was good looking, for a civil servant.

“They won’t like it when we _aren’t_ ass deep in freezing rain. But it’ll mean that more people will be in Vancouver when they strike. Bigger casualties has an appeal for the Omnics. It may buy us time… and it’s not the first time that the weather report has been wrong,” Jack said, shrugging, eyes snapping back to Gabriel. “It’s a good plan. We can do it.” He cracked a small smile. “But you do know that we’ll probably wind up being the actual ones in the snow, right?”

“Ah, come now, I’m certain Ana and Gabriel can stop complaining for long enough to make it into the snow!” Reinhardt laughed loudly, his voice booming around the hallway. “Not to worry, my warm blooded friends, I will carry you through the snow if need be!”

“Worth noting that it will be harder to fight in the snow,” Ana said, arms folding over her chest. “We’re not wilderness fighters. All our experience is in cities. Or the desert.”

“The Canadian wilderness is a little different from your typical desert.” Samuel smiled, turning around and nodding at Torbjorn. “My assistant is going to give you a space to work from. You should be able to work efficiently from there. As for the rest of you… you will need a guide to bring you through the mountains. We’re weighing options for who might be best, but I was going to recommend that it be me.”

“Do you have a lot of experience in the wild, Mr. Simeon?” Ana asked, seeming amused by the prospect.

“Yes, ma’am. I was a park ranger before I started my life as a politician. And I grew up in the mountains.” Samuel smiled at her. “I can help. I _want_ to help, in whatever way I can. Most of us get to sit on our asses and pray that the Omnics never come. Now you’re here and we have the chance to make a difference. I can lead you out there. I know what I’m doing.”

“A brave man indeed!” Reinhardt called out, sounding thrilled by the prospect. He rose to his feet, approaching Samuel. “I would happily have Samuel lead us through the mountains! A grand adventure it will be! We find the Omnium, and strike as one!”

Samuel just about fell over when Reinhardt clapped his back.

“Bringing a civilian into a war zone isn’t exactly what I’d think of as the wisest move,” Gabriel said, crossing his arms.

“Aye, yet here I am. Civilian as the day I was born,” Torbjorn said, elbowing him lightly. “Do you want to lead this lot through the woods when you don’t know where the fuck you’re going?”

“I could do without that,” Jack said, smiling at Gabriel and elbowing him on the other side. “Gabe, let’s-“

“Let’s make one thing clear,” Gabriel said, not falling to their baiting, “for not just our sake, but for Mr. Simeon’s as well. This is a civilian going into a war zone. Maybe he knows that, and that’s fine. Great for us. But when we meet the Omnics, and we will, there’s a good chance that you’ll die. Plenty of people have. We might die. We’re not special. If shit goes tits up, and we’re all gone, except for him… he’s out there alone. And that’s the end of that.” He pointed at Torbjorn, then Jack. “Help is always appreciated. We can all agree to that. But let’s not pretend that this is going to be a fun adventure.”

Samuel frowned a little, but he nodded. “I’m ready to die for this. I’m here to serve my country, and the people in it. Them, more than anything. Especially the ones out there who don’t have anyone protecting them. You need someone who knows the area. I’m that person.” He let out a small chuckle. “That’s why they sent me.”

Gabriel gave him another once over, but that was good enough for him. They needed people ready to die for the cause.

Shame those people were always the good ones.

~~

“You need a warmer jacket than this, Ana, you’re going to freeze.” Jack said, digging through the coats they’d been offered to find something warmer.

Ana scoffed, finding a scarf and wrapping it around her neck a few times. “I’m hardly Gabriel. I won’t cry when the temperature drops below freezing. It can be cold in the desert too, you know.”

“Yeah, but we’ll still be tromping through the snow.” Jack smiled a little. “And you _do_ like to complain about the cold, just like him. Think like I’m… pre-emptively curbing your complaining. Unless Reinhardt really does let you sit on his shoulders.” He smiled a little wider, finding a suitable coat for her on the rack. “But then I guess that means I have to carry Gabriel, and you’re a lot lighter than he is.”

Ana frowned, looking at the wall. “Jack… about…”

Jack walked over, offering her the coat, though she didn’t move to take it. “About what?”

Ana sighed. “You and Gabriel. Are you sure it’s a good idea?”

Jack stopped dead.

“What’s a good idea? Us going into the woods?” Jack said weakly, trying to think of some joke he could make.

“Jack. I saw. At your party,” Ana said, frowning. “There have been little things. You hide it well, but…”

Jack wanted to run. His blood felt cold. It was hard not to think about the last person who had found out he and Gabriel were seeing each other. This was Ana, though. Overwatch had become a tight knit group. They’d all shed blood for each other. Jack would lay his life on the line for her.

He had, more than once. Just like she had for him.

“I’m not… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jack said, trying to force a smile. “Am I missing a joke?”

Ana sighed, taking the coat and folding it over in her arms. “I’m not judging. We do what we have to in order to get through this. But you don’t have to put on a brave face and charge into this just because he does. You don’t need to be him to make him love you.”

Jack let out a hoarse laugh. “He doesn’t- I don’t- I’m not-“ He cut himself off, turning and grabbing a coat for himself. “It’s not like that.” It wasn’t. Wanting it to be something it wasn’t didn’t make it so. Couldn’t make it do.

He was young. Naïve. An idiot. A little dense. _Willing to kill for him. If I have to._ And he had.

He had nightmares about it sometimes. The feeling of blood on his face. He’d only killed one person. More omnics than he could count. _Tin cans, dime a dozen_. Gabriel always said that. But only one real person. Even if, in the end, he hadn’t been the one who’d done the killing blow, it was his actions that had led to it.

He’d done it for Gabriel. He’d been willing to do it for him. He couldn’t pretend it was for something more noble than that he’d wanted to protect Gabriel’s reputation. His career. That was all, and he’d still killed for it.

“Oh, Jack,” Ana said quietly, putting her hand on his shoulder. “I thought, but… it’s obvious, isn’t it? If you look at it from the right angle.”

“Ana, please, you can’t…” Jack looked back at her, shaking his head. “Please don’t tell anyone. It isn’t… it won’t impact the mission. Overwatch comes first.” Would they push him out? Throw him under the bus? Gabriel was so effective in command, he wasn’t expendable. Jack wasn’t much more than-

“Jack,” Ana said, lifting his chin to kiss his cheek, “I told you, I’m not judging. I won’t tell anyone, if you don’t want me to. This isn’t me confronting you, telling you that you have no choice but to end it… I just want you to think about why you’re here. If you’re like Mr. Simeon, and you’re willing to die for the cause because you think it’s the right thing to do… or if you’re doing it for him.”

“I…” Jack sat back on the desk, resting his hand against the coat rack beside them. “I joined the army for a lot of reasons. To get away from home… to have something different. Something that wasn’t just staying in one place my whole life. But I… wanted to serve. To do more for my country and the people in it than just… exist in it.”

He took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice even. This was Ana. No one else. They’d been partners before they even knew each other’s names.

“I didn’t think I was going to stay. Overwatch. That I… But when I did, it wasn’t for him. I mean, it wasn’t _just_ for him.” Jack looked back at her. “He matters to me. He made me want to be a better person. But he’s a part of this world. And there are millions of other people who need to be safe in it.”

Ana smiled at him, but it wasn’t a happy one. “It can never be simple, can it?”

“Nah, guess not,” Jack said, looking back down at his hands. “I should have… it isn’t that I don’t trust you. It’s just a lot, you know? And I thought you might…”

“Not understand?” Ana asked, nodding slowly. “We’re a team, Jack. I’ll always have your back. But I want us to be honest with each other. I need to know what I should be watching your back _for._ ”

“What, watching to make sure Gabe treats me right?” Jack smiled weakly.

Ana’s smile faded. “To make sure that you both believe what you said. That nothing is more important than the mission.” Then she relaxed a little, taking a hat and putting it on Jack’s head, straightening it for him. “And that he treats you right. Now come on, you need a warmer coat too or you’ll catch a cold.”

Jack laughed, but he still felt nervous. “Sure, mom.”

Ana sighed, leaning in and kissing his forehead. “I’m here for you. That won’t change. No matter what else happens, no matter what changes, I am here for you. Alright? And not just because you helped save me from a giant robot that dropped on our heads before I even knew you.”

“You saved me too,” Jack said, patting her shoulder. “I trust you. I mean, I trust all of us… you, Reinhardt, Torbjorn, Adawe, and… especially Gabe, but you’re right up there. You know? I wouldn’t have made it this far without you.”

“I know, dear,” Ana said, picking up a face mask that looked a little like an owl. “Now tell me, is this too much, or just right?”

Jack snorted, nodding. “It’s very you. I think a hawk or an eagle would be better, though.”

“You keep the eagle, Jack. It’s very in the American spirit of things.” Ana chuckled, taking the mask and putting it on. “I prefer to be a night predator, at least for while we’re in the snow.”

“As long as we’ll be the hunters and not the hunted, I’m fine with that.” Jack nodded, taking an extra jacket for Gabriel. He’d need it.

~~

Even though Torbjorn’s warning was fake, and even though they’d been dropped into the zone by a stealth plane and thus avoided a lot of hiking, Gabriel _hated_ this mission. He hated the cold. He hated the dampness that he could feel through his clothes and inside his boots. He hated _winter_.

And he couldn’t even complain about it as loudly as he wanted to because it was a goddamn _stealth mission_.

“This is about as close as we can get without being noticed,” Gabriel had said, back when they’d been planning things out. “From there, we travel for the night, to here. It’s a small scientific outpost. They were evacuated in the first round. There are supplies there we can make use of in the meantime, and that will let us travel light. We’ll need that, because we have to be able to move fast and the weather is going to make that tricky.”

Yeah, tricky.

Gabriel had done a few missions in snow during his time. Snow was a problem. It left tracks. It made it hard to move. You risked freezing to death. It was damp as hell. You could slip. Fall asleep and not wake up. Get frostbite. Wind up buried.

The opposite of the desert in some ways, but they were identically deadly. Gabriel still preferred desert.

Even with the entire team from Overwatch and the Canadian government working at full capacity – which, as with any government, was incredibly slow – it took them four days to get the word out and move people. Not bad, but they’d still lost contact with two small towns.

Rescue teams would have to go for them later. When it was safe. When they wouldn’t round a corner and find an Omnic looking to tear them in half. When all the survivors would be dead, and it would be pointless to even send someone to save them.

Bureaucratic red tape. How many people did it need to kill for someone to give a damn?

Then there was Jack. He had been unusually quiet.

It wasn’t anything that had happened at his birthday. Or nothing Gabriel that had thought of at first. He knew Jack had been fine before then. He had seemed fine when the mission had started. Gabriel thought, at first, it might just be being back in North America instead of Europe. Maybe Jack was thinking about his family?

No. Jack fought harder when he was closer to home. He got more protective.

Which left the question, what was bugging Jack?

Ana whistled up ahead. It could have been mistaken for some kind of bird, though Gabriel didn’t know what birds would be out in the damn snowstorm. The omnics probably wouldn’t notice or care. The animals around them didn’t bother them much. Just humans.

“She’s found it,” Reinhardt said, as quietly as Reinhardt could say anything. Still, the howling wind through the trees made him almost as hard to hear as Ana’s signal. They had their camp for the night.

The building was small, only meant for three people originally, with limited supplies that had been left for them. Three cots, none of which were big enough for Reinhardt, and some food left behind. Dry only - there was no power now.

Reinhardt set down his pack, immediately fishing out their space heater. Dangerous, but ultimately necessary due to the cold. Jack moved to hang some of their blockers on the wall, which would help with the omnics that had heat vision, and block the light from inside… but none of that would help if they had a missile launched at them anyways.

“So far so good,” Sam mumbled, pulling down the scarf that had covered his face.

“Yeah, well, let’s hope the weather has cleared up tomorrow so that we can actually get a good sense of where we are. We’re counting on you starting tomorrow,” Gabriel said, getting out some of their sleeping bags, laying them down around the space heater. “And I swear to God, if there’s a headline out there about us all dying, it had better not be us freezing to death while lost in the woods.”

“I don’t think any of us are holding out hope for that.” Ana chuckled, pulling down her scarf. “How does anyone survive in these Northern climates, I ask you?”

“It’s not so bad once you get used to it.” Sam said, sitting down and catching his breath. “It’s really pretty, when you don’t have homicidal robots looking to tear you to shreds.”

“Ah, these cold Canadian winters are much like the mountains back home!” Reinhardt said loudly, before he caught himself. “It is, ah, not so bad. Such as it is. Still colder than would be typical. But not so bad.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t feel my toes. So there’s that,” Gabriel said, warming his hands against the heater while he could.

Jack smiled, sitting down beside him, still huddled in his snow gear. “Quiet out there so far, though. I thought we might run into some of them tonight.” He sighed, shaking his legs out. “Probably sticking closer to the towns…” He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t need to.

The omnics would be looking for stragglers.

Sam shivered, pulling up his map. “I… yeah. We’ll try and avoid the larger towns. Anywhere the Omnics might gather in force. It’ll be easier to give them a wide berth.”

Ana nodded, kneeling between Gabriel and Jack, looking over their shoulders at the map. Jack tensed a little when she did. Weird. Weird unless Ana _had_ noticed something at the party. Unless she _had_ said something to Jack.

It had been a brief moment, but when he’d gone down on Jack in the restroom, he’d knelt down to do it. On his knee where he’d touched the floor, there must have been a wet spot from the sink. Or maybe from when Jack’s beer had spilt when he’d set it down. Not a dead giveaway for most people, but enough for Ana to put two and two together. She knew how close they were. Just not _exactly_ how close.

“The route you’ve marked down should work,” Ana said, now more obviously between Jack and Gabriel. Or at least, obvious to Gabriel. Maybe obvious to Jack too, though he could be a bit more dense. “We stick together and go in rotations for tonight. I set up imaging for outside, so we’ll be able to watch around the station. Our blockers should protect us from being noticed.”

Gabriel nodded. “I’ll take the first watch. Jack’s the early bird, he can go last, he’ll be awake anyway. Next in the rotation… Ana, you want to take that?” Gabriel asked, giving her a meaningful look.

There needed to be a conversation.

“Sounds good. I only need a short nap,” Ana said, glancing at Sam and Reinhardt. “Any other takers?”

“I can go after!” Reinhardt said proudly. “Let Samuel rest, he is no soldier and will need as much rest-“ he caught himself, quieting down again - “he will need as much rest as he can get.”

“I’m still a public servant, I can-“ Sam tried to say, but Gabriel cut him off.

“Public servant, Sam, not a soldier. We’ve been trained for this shit, you haven’t,” Gabriel said, waving him off. “You get your sleep, we need you fresh. Me first, then Ana, then Reinhardt, then Jack. We good for that?”

There were scattered nods, but Jack didn’t seem to notice there had even been talking.

“Jack, you with us?”

Jack blinked, looking over. “Oh, uh… yeah. You, Ana, Reinhardt, me. Sorry. Drop and the cold has left me a bit out of it.” He smiled. “I’ll be fine after some sleep.”

Gabriel nodded slowly. “Right. Get some rest then, alright? All of you. Ana, let’s get the surveillance set up.”

When she came close enough, he leaned over to her, making sure they were out of earshot from the others. “Are we going to have a problem?”

Ana glanced over her shoulder at the others, then looked at Gabriel. “Are we?”

Gabriel glared briefly. “Don’t play games. Tell me what’s on your mind now, because I don’t need a Titan dropped on us when we’re on bad terms.”

“Even if they did drop one, I would still have your back” Ana said, sitting down and pulling up their outdoor cameras. “And I’m not angry with either of you. If you’re going to do this, you need someone to help you stay objective.”

“We’ve been fine so far,” Gabriel said, glancing over his shoulder at Jack, who was hovering near his sleeping bag, looking back at him. “I’ll take care of him.”

“But it’s not just you,” Ana said, giving him an even stare. “I told him the same thing. You can’t care more about one person than everyone else. And on the battlefield you may have to pick. Maybe today, maybe a year from now, but it could happen. It’s one thing to care for someone back home, someone you need to keep safe, but when the one you love is right beside you?” She shrugged. “I would have thought someone with your experience would know better.”

Gabriel felt the hair on the back of his neck rise up. “Well, that’s not always a choice we get to make. Sue me.”

Ana sighed, shaking her head. “You’re acting like I’m trying to attack you here. I’m not. If you get into trouble, I will always bail you out. But this could get a lot of people killed.”

“I lost my _best friend_ ,” Gabriel hissed at her, squaring off in a way he realized, briefly, would be recognizably hostile to the other people in the room. “You’re not the only one who knows how bad shit can get here. I’ll do _exactly_ what I have to.” He stepped back, trying to look more relaxed as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t want to lose any of you. But we’ve been fine so far, and we will be going forward.”

Ana slowly nodded, sighing. “It isn’t that I don’t believe you… it’s just that things can get messy. And he will go to hell and back, if you ask him. Don’t take advantage of that.”

Then, like little fingers of ice along his neck, Gabriel felt something. He felt lips whisper into his ear. He heard a voice he hadn’t heard in years whisper to him. “Like you did with me, Gabby.”

Gabriel shivered, trying to push her away, even if it just meant waving his hand over his shoulder. Reminding himself that Abigail Goldman was dead, and had been for a long time. “I won’t. Trust me, I don’t want Jack doing anything more stupid than he’ll already do on his own.”

“Like fall in love with you.” Abbey laughed in his ear. “Oh sweet thing, I have a prophecy for you: you’ll always hurt the one you love.”

And regardless of how many times Gabriel reminded himself that she was gone, he couldn’t shake his dead friend’s laughter from his head.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy that took a while. Sorry everyone, life and all that jazz.  
> Sadly this chapter is very unsexy.  
> As always, questions? Concerns? Complaints? Find me over at http://youredgedadsareshowing.tumblr.com/ I'm always happy to chat over there!  
> Thanks again to Aisu for being the best and most supportive beta ever. Love you <3


	3. Love and Revenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you miss me? I MISSED YOU.
> 
> Thank you for bearing with me! I love you all <3 I want to thank everyone who's sent me asks about how I'm doing, and encouraging messages. It's been really great! I also enjoyed meeting a few of you in person at TCAF and SDCC, it was really awesome and inspiring.
> 
> As always, couldn't do this without my awesome beta Aisu!
> 
> Quick mention, this chapter contains brief mention of animal cruelty.
> 
> As always, you can reach me with questions, concerns, or just to chat at http://youredgedadsareshowing.tumblr.com/ And maybe soon also on twitter? I'm back and forth on whether or not I have the ability to maintain that.
> 
> Love you, and enjoy!

In his dreams, Jack had Gabriel’s arms wrapped around him. Had his Commander breathing softly in his ear. Could feel his hands sliding off his pants. Not real life, then - Jack knew his military pants wouldn't give way so easily. He had some experience in that regard. So it was a dream. Had to be a dream. They were in the middle of a mission, Gabriel wouldn’t-

“Be quiet, Jack,” Gabriel said quietly. “Don't want to wake up Ana. She'll be really upset if she finds out.” His fingers pressed inside Jack, exploring him. Teasing him. Hooking against his rim, before a second finger pressed against him, twisting just a little deeper.

“She knows already…” Jack mumbled, fighting back a moan. It wasn't real. Just a nice dream. And he was so cold.

“Let me warm you up, Jackie boy,” Gabriel said, running his tongue down the back of Jack’s neck. Freezing. How could Gabriel be so cold? “I know what you like.”

Ana sat in front of them, head resting on her hand. She looked disappointed, sighing and shaking her head.

“Ana… it's not what it looks like-” Jack tried to say, but Gabriel was up to his knuckles now. No chance. _Please, God, let this be a dream_.

“You could always join us, you know.” Gabriel smiled, his hand moving up Jack’s bare chest and pinching a nipple. “The more the merrier. And he's so unattended…”

“What? No, what-?” Jack said, trying to twist around. Gabriel wouldn't let him. Pinned him down. Kept him trapped. Just where he wanted to be.

Now he was getting hot. He wasn't even sure how many hands Gabriel _had_ anymore.

“Come on, Ana.” Gabriel smiled, all teeth now. “You've got to wonder what he's like. Last chance.”

Jack was about to open his mouth again when he felt a sharp pain in his right knee. It jolted him awake, and his first thought was to wonder what Ana might have said.

But the thought was cut short as he realized that Gabriel had kicked him in the back of his knee. And was about to do it again.

“No y'fucking don't…” Jack mumbled, scooting forward to stop Gabriel from kicking him again. “Having a nice dream…”

Gabriel mumbled something in his sleep. It sounded like it could have been “Freezing my balls off,” but Jack wasn't entirely sure. It still made him smile, despite everything. Ana wasn't wrong, he knew that. There were reasons for rules. But that said, he wasn't sure he would have made it so far without Gabriel. Without someone who would inspire him to get up every day. Who got him through the rough nights. Who made him feel like it was worth it, even after everything he’d seen out there.

_Worth killing for._

Jack sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. The touch was freezing.

“You do not need to be awake for ten more minutes, Jack,” came Reinhardt’s voice, sounding like he was trying to be quiet but couldn’t quite manage it. “Rest some, if you need to.”

“No, that’s alright,” Jack said, sitting up and shivering. He could see his breath floating away. “Ten minutes isn’t enough for me to go back to sleep. You can lay down if you like.”

“No, no… not necessary.” Reinhardt waved his hand, looking back over towards Ana. “I feel recharged enough, I believe.”

Jack followed his gaze, knowing the look. It had always been somewhat of a dead giveaway with Reinhardt, who was probably the only person worse than Jack was at hiding emotion. _Well, maybe Torbjorn._

“You could tell her, you know,” Jack said softly, glancing back at his friend. “That she’s special to you.”

Reinhardt blinked, sitting back, looking for a moment like he might protest the statement. Then he changed his mind, his shoulders sagging. “Yes, I could. But I do not think it would be wise. And I have been attempting to be ‘wise’ lately.”

Jack frowned. “What do you mean? Do you think she’d turn you down or-?”

“Oh, no. Not… She likely would. I do not think I am her type.” Reinhardt shifted awkwardly. “That said, I have placed her on a pedestal, I suppose. She is everything I would like to be myself. I both want to be her and…” He shook his head. “She deserves someone who sees her as she really is. Not as a fantasy.”

Jack looked down at his hands, clenching his fists to get the blood flowing again. “You know you’ll never move past that point if you don’t try, right?”

Reinhardt chuckled, getting up and patting Jack’s arm. “Ah, my friend, you are still young. Would that things were so simple. But it is not something I can explore when I also have to keep her, and the rest of you, alive. I need her as she is.”

Jack nodded slowly, wishing he could warm himself. He could barely feel their space heater. “I think you’re overthinking it a little.”

Reinhardt chuckled. “Not something I am often accused of.”

“Something I get accused of a lot,” Jack said, sitting beside Reinhardt. “Or at least… I do now. Trying not to rush into things without looking. Just saying, Ana is good at helping with that.”

“True.” Reinhardt nodded, taking a drink from his thermos. Jack wasn’t sure what was in it, but it smelt pretty good. “Overthinking off the battlefield, perhaps not thinking enough on it.”

“We’ll call it our motto.” Jack chuckled. “Somehow the others always seem to have a plan-” He stopped, looking at the monitors. “Hey. We’ve got some movement out there.”

Reinhardt looked, stroking his chin. “There… Heat signatures, though, not just movement.”

“Shit,” Jack mumbled quietly. “Refugees - have to be.” He counted up the signatures. Twenty-nine in all. More than enough to flag any Omnics in the area. They were sitting ducks. “I’m going to wake the Commander.”

He moved quickly to Gabriel’s side, shaking him lightly. Nothing that would make him think there was an impending attack, but enough to make sure he wouldn’t just sleep through it. Because given the chance, Gabriel was just _not_ a morning person.

“Gabe, we’ve got a situation.”

Gabriel blinked in the dark, mumbling to himself before he looked at Jack. “Situation…? Fuck, has to be first thing in the goddamn morning… Ana! Up.”

Jack winced and Ana sat bolt upright, hand on her gun.

“What's going on? We under attack?” she asked, already assembling her sniper rifle.

“No, Christ, I would have shouted more. We have heat signatures,” Jack said, indicating the cameras.

Gabriel and Ana both moved to observe, while Sam slowly sat up. He looked at them, groggy, his eyes falling on Jack. “What's going on?”

“Twenty nine. Shit. No way we can hide twenty nine people here.” Gabriel reached up, stroking his beard. “They get too close and they'll blow our cover.”

“We can't leave them out there. They'll die, from cold or from the Omnics,” Ana said sternly.

“And how many more die if we don't get to that factory before the Omnics know we're here?” Gabriel asked, raising an eyebrow at her. “We have to be _objective_.”

Jack hissed under his breath. Clearly Ana and Gabriel had not had the same type of conversation he had. “Okay, yeah, but they could also find us. Like you said. Not good either.”

“Ana is right!” Reinhardt said, his chest puffing up. “We cannot leave them out there.”

“Can't take them on our mission either,” Gabriel said.  “Can't fit twenty nine people in here. Can't bring a plane in this close. You suggesting we walk them back? Because other than that, we don't exactly have easy choices.”

“Someone has to get them out of the mountains,” Sam said quietly. “I will. I can make you a map from here… Not optimal, but I can't leave them.”

“Yeah, I'm sure you're real worried about losing your voters.” Gabriel rolled his eyes. “You go alone, then run into trouble, and they still end up dead.”

“He won't go alone. I'm going with him,” Ana said, picking up her sniper rifle before moving to face Gabriel directly. “Unless you have some objection.”

Gabriel sighed loudly. “No. Fucking hell. But you're not going alone. Take Reinhardt with you.”

Reinhardt and Ana both answered at once. “Yes, that would be best-” and “But you will need me at the Omnium-”

“Shut up,” Gabriel said, no longer anyone’s friend or lover. He was their Commander. “We're not having a Dubai part two. Sam, put together that map. Reinhardt, get out there and collect the civilians. Ana, you're in charge of getting them from point A to point B. If you see an Omnic, you take the fucker down. We cannot, under any circumstances, let them figure out we're here.” He looked back at Jack. “We're on stealth until we get to the Omnium. No frontal assault now. We get in, bring down the guns, then launch an airstrike to take it out.”

Jack nodded, holding out his hand to Ana. “I'll need some of your med packs, just in case.”

Ana tossed him one. “Of course. Look after yourselves out there.” She looked after Reinhardt as he headed into the cold. “I'll take care of them.”

“I know you will,” Gabriel said, patting her shoulder. “I trust you.”

~~

Gabriel had not sent Ana away because he trusted her.

He did. She was good, and ultimately more experienced than everyone else in their group. She would get the refugees to safety, and she would make sure they went undetected. Reinhardt would die for her, if he had to. She would keep perspective once she had everything laid out in front of her.

That was Ana’s problem. If the problem was directly in front of her, she couldn't ignore it. Making her a sniper had always made sense to him, in that respect. The closer Ana got to anything, the harder time she had letting it go.

Gabriel didn't need that. Not right then. Sometimes he wished he had Torbjorn on the front, because ultimately they were both practical. More or less.

Jack would at least listen when he knew it was important. More now than he had before, anyway. Even if his first instincts were still too self-sacrificial for Gabriel’s liking.

“Next checkpoint is this way!” Jack said from ahead, his voice muffled by his face mask. He reached up, adjusting his visor, lining up the coordinates Sam had given them.

That, Gabriel didn't love. While babysitting a civilian wasn't his idea of a party, Sam could have directed them better if things went wrong. A compass, a map, and hard-wired navigation could only do so much if they got off track. They couldn't risk the GPS, and Omnium facilities could fuck with a compass. The weather could fuck with senses. None of it replaced someone who knew where they were going.

Directing civilians was a hell of a lot more complicated, but ultimately the current mission was more important by a long shot. Twenty nine versus a few thousand: easy choice.

Not something that sounded great on camera. though. He wasn't going to force Jack to explain _that_ to the journalists who would no doubt crawl all over them the second they got back. Sam seemed like a good enough guy, but it would be too easy for him to turn around and proclaim Overwatch a group of bloodthirsty heartless UN mercenaries.

 _Fucking politics_. Made it easy to fantasize about just killing them all.

“Gabe, got a problem,” Jack said, kneeling down and tracing his fingers over the snow. “Tracks. OR-14s, by the look. Single file, hard to tell how many.”

Gabriel knelt down next to him, hissing under his breath. Even moving to kneel down made his joints hurt from the cold. The insulation of his suit wasn't nearly enough.

Focusing on the new problem made it easier not to think about the weather.

He and Jack had started their own march immediately after splitting from the others. They'd avoided major roads - too easy to be spotted there - but that meant going through snow that alternated between knee and waist deep. No Reinhardt clearing the path also meant that they were only going half speed. The trip was already a day’s walk in good weather, and bad weather meant two, according to Sam. And Gabriel and Jack were _not_ making optimal time, which meant possibly three days in the wilderness.

“Great…” Gabriel muttered, looking at the Omnic tracks. They were headed for the main road. Good, but bad.

“Time is getting a lot tighter…” Jack mumbled quietly, echoing Gabriel’s own thoughts on the matter. “Should we follow the tracks back to the Omnium? Might be a shorter trip…”

“Might be. Might also lead us straight into their next wave,” Gabriel said, every word making his breath freeze and leave icicles on his beard.

The tracks weren't that old. Possibly from that very morning, since no new snow covered them. And Omnics were many things, but light was not one of them. They'd torn up dirt as well as snow.

“Next wave probably won't launch until tomorrow. The God will wait until they have a big enough group,” Jack suggested, and Gabe nodded his agreement.

Always a chance that the God virus from that particular area might choose a slightly different course than its predecessors, but unlikely. Even independent from their programming, the Omnics preferred efficiency, even when it made them predictable. Normally, he would leave that for Liao and Torbjorn to work out the details of, but now he had to think like the machines themselves.

“Looks like you’re finally getting a head for strategy.” Gabriel smirked, patting Jack’s shoulder. “We follow them back to the Omnium… and hope we don’t fucking freeze to death on the way.” Which he wasn’t very confident in.

Two more grueling hours passed in the freezing cold, and it was getting dark. It hadn’t started to snow again yet, but the clouds were gathering, which meant that they could lose the trail the following day.

“Keep going and we risk running into the next batch in the middle of the night. Or tomorrow on no sleep,” Jack said with a sigh, echoing Gabriel’s thoughts.

“Don’t keep going, risk losing the tracks to the weather.” Gabriel nodded, looking up at the sky. “Next group will probably follow the same path, but might not. Still might not be able to follow tracks in the dark. Or lose track of them.”

“Better to find a place to lay low then,” Jack said, glancing around. He reached up to his visor, then pointed. “There, looks like there are some caves in that area. A couple of heat signatures… too small to be bears, I think, and not big enough to be humans for sure.”

Gabriel nodded. That would have to do. “Let’s go snuggle up then…”

Jack laughed, but followed him. At least the snow hadn’t put him in a bad mood.

They found the cave easily enough, finding it uninhabited by anything larger by a few startled rabbits. Jack seemed glad for the shelter of the cave walls as they set up the tent, and once it was complete, he took a moment to just sit in it and breathe.

Unfortunately, Gabriel still had other questions.

“So, Ana talked to me too,” Gabriel said, sealing their tent inside the cave. It was meant to keep the Omnics from being able to pick up their heat signatures, which, based on their previous peaceful night, should work. Torbjorn, still good for something.

“Me too,” Jack said, his shoulders slumping. Dreading this particular conversation, no doubt. “It, uh… went okay. Not as bad as if it had been Adawe, I guess. That what you guys were talking about before? Because your version seemed more intense than mine.”

“Yeah, you’re not the superior officer who’s breaking the rules like I am.” Gabriel shrugged, turning up their heater. He still didn’t feel very warm. “And she’s not wrong about a lot of things. I know you’ll give your all no matter what gets thrown at you-“

“Yeah, and that’s not just for you. That’s how I am,” Jack said, crossing his arms. “I’d follow Ana, Reinhardt and Torbjorn into hell too. I do it because I trust them, and what we’ve got has nothing to do with it.” He stopped, pawing at his face with his gloves. “Wow, that sounded bad. What we’ve got is special too, and-“

“You _suck_.” Gabriel chuckled, taking the front of Jack’s jacket and pulling him in for a kiss.

Jack let him, pressing his ice-cold lips against Gabriel’s and holding himself against him. Warmer now, though Gabriel still would have killed a man for a steamy bath. Gabriel wrapped his arms around him a little tighter, pressing him against the wall of the cave. Bad place to do much more than kiss and grope, but now that it was just the two of them he was willing to risk that much.

“ _You’re_ a tease…” Jack mumbled, pressing his hips against Gabriel’s. Material was too thick to tell if Jack was hard or not, but Gabriel knew how to wind him up if he really needed to. “We could… could die tomorrow, you know…”

“Could,” Gabriel agreed, putting his cold hands under Jack’s coat and shirt.

Jack yelped, then bit his lip. “ _Fucker_.” Then he pushed his cold hand into the back of Gabriel’s pants and grabbed his ass.

Gabriel had to try really hard not to punch him for that. “You son of a-“

“Hey, be nice to my mom.” Jack chuckled, leaning in and kissing him again, cutting off the resumed attempt at insult.

Gabriel normally didn’t do sex before missions. He didn’t mind getting Jack off, since he figured it helped ease the tension, but he had never been good at focusing on it. The thought that Jack, or anyone he knew, could just as easily be dead the next day had a bad habit of rendering him unable to perform.

With Jack though, it was hard _not_ to. Jack could make him laugh. Make him forget how shitty everything was. Make it so hard to get out of bed in the morning when Jack was right there beside him, safe and sound.

So, instead of calling it off, Gabriel pulled Jack down onto their sleeping bags. He undid the jacket and pulled up Jack’s shirt, kissing his chest, despite Jack’s protests about how cold it was.

“You’ll warm up fast this way,” Gabriel said, taking a nipple in his mouth and playing with it.

Jack moaned, his voice raspy from the cold as he wrapped his fingers in Gabriel’s hair, pushing him down. Gabriel responded by biting him, enjoying the choked gasping noise Jack made as teeth sunk in. Gabriel didn’t break the skin - he’d gotten too good at it to make that mistake (and when he did it deliberately, Jack preferred a few days for the swelling to go down). He used his thighs to keep Jack down as he squirmed.

And God, was it ever a relief to have his mouth on Jack when he inhaled, because he felt so damn good. His muscles tensing and relaxing, whole body coming to life because of what Gabriel was doing to him. The further down he moved, the more responsive Jack got.

“Gabe… too fucking…” Jack said, raking his fingers down Gabriel’s back now, clawing his shirt off.

Gabriel would have complained about the freezing air, but even with their lame space heater he felt warm now. Comfortable.

He ran his fingers over Jack’s hips, sliding down his pants and underwear easily enough once he got the button open. He could open Jack’s fly with his teeth, lots of practice, but Jack was good enough to help by lifting his hips.

Gabriel climbed back up him slowly, his body aching from the long slog through the snow, but it didn’t matter now. He pushed his hips against Jack’s, lifting the other man’s legs to make sure he could lay himself over his cock. He pressed their chests as close as he could, smothering Jack with his body. Just to feel the _heat._

“ _Fuck_ …” Jack moaned, his sensitive cock twitching against Gabriel’s thick pants. He wrapped his arms around Gabriel and kissed him desperately, their teeth clicking against each other. Gabriel pushed him back down, thrusting hard, making sure that Jack could feel the toned muscles in his thighs.

It was nearly impossible for Gabriel to keep himself from fucking Jack’s mouth with his tongue. He doesn’t even bother fighting back when Jack worked his pants off for him, because he wanted the contact. The smell of Jack, the taste of Jack, it was what he needed.

“What happened to staying focused on the mission, Gabe?” a voice whispered in his ear. Abbey.

 _Not now._ Gabriel tried to force her voice away, pulling back from Jack. _You’re dead. Abbey Goldman is dead. My name is Gabriel Reyes, and-_

“Hey…” Jack reached up, taking Gabriel’s cheek and turning it back towards him. “You’re here. With me.” He reached down between their legs, taking both of their cocks in his hand. He slowly began to massage them, keeping Gabriel facing him. “Just be here with me.”

Gabriel took a deep breath, leaning his forehead against Jack, forcing Abbey out of his head. _Not her. Nothing she would really say_.

Even that thought rapidly disappeared when he felt Jack’s fingers held them together. He moved up and down Gabriel’s shaft, pressing their heads together. Gabriel could feel Jack’s breath on his skin, and he closed his eyes, leaning in and kissing him again. Softly this time.

His dick throbbed against Jack’s, and he dipped his hips down again. He moved again, pushing the invasive thoughts away. Abbey’s words, and Ana’s. He needed this. He needed Jack. He wanted to feel his thighs against him. To taste his sweat and his skin.

“Come with me, Jack…” he said, eyes wide open now. “I want to see you come with me.”

Jack nodded, his face red as he arched his back, chest touching Gabriel’s. “C-can’t… keep it going much…”

“Don’t,” Gabriel said, gripping Jack’s hair, “Let it happen… come for me, Jack.”

It wasn’t their usual electric session. It was relaxing. When he came it was like someone lifted a weight off his shoulders, easing into it with Jack, their bodies unfolding with each other. Gabriel practically collapsed onto Jack, wrapping him in his arms.

Jack let him, leaning his head against Gabriel and sighing. “…guess we should probably decide on who’s taking first watch, huh?”

“Fuck you,” Gabriel mumbled, holding onto the feeling as long as he could. It wouldn’t last. “I love you, Jack. Just… fuck you.”

Jack froze up in his arms, turning to look at him. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I… fuck I wasn’t…”

“Expecting that, you flippant asshole?” Gabriel chuckled, kissing Jack’s forehead. “I love you. Figure if we’re about to do something stupid might as well lay it out there.”

“I didn’t… I wasn’t sure if…” Jack said, stumbling on his words. “I mean, I wasn’t-“

“Jack it’s been _two years_. Wouldn’t still be doing this if I didn’t love you,” Gabriel said, laying over on the sleeping bag and pulling Jack along with him.

“You’re a condescending prick. I love you,” Jack said, leaning up and kissing Gabriel back. “And you’d better not just be saying this because you think we’re going to freeze to death.”

“I don’t _think_ we will, because if that’s how I go, I’ll punch the first deity I encounter,” Gabriel said, taking a cloth from his bag and cleaning himself up. He passed it to Jack, raising an eyebrow suggestively.

Jack took it and made a motion like he was going to shove it in Gabriel’s mouth before he started to clean himself up. “…Didn’t think we’d get to this point. Especially not in a cave in a snowstorm.”

“We’ve been at that point for a while,” Gabriel said, shrugging, “Just got tired of you dancing around it like you had something to hide.” And something about being so close to him just made it feel right. Like Jack needed to know.

“Just… never been in love before.” Jack laughed. “Congratulations, you get to be my first something.”

“Be your last too, I bet.” Gabriel grinned, pulling Jack’s shirt down. “Get some rest. I’m finally warm now. You can take second shift.”

“You say like you don’t always stay up late,” Jack said, handing Gabriel back his shirt. “See you when I wake up.”

“Always,” Gabriel said, pulling the sleeping bag over Jack’s head.

Weir, how now Abbey had stopped talking.

~~

Colonel Philip Erikson woke up in a place he didn’t know to the sound of screaming. It took him a moment to place it. It wasn’t human. Something animal.

He tried to move, but his whole body was sluggish. Drugged, he was certain. He had been on base. How could anyone have gotten to him? He was surrounded by his soldiers. His eyes were bleary as he looked around. A cabin of some kind? It seemed like wood.

The screaming stopped, and footsteps approached him from behind. He tried to turn his head, see what was in store for him, but he could barely even lift his own head.

“Y-you think… you’ll get away… with this?” he mumbled, but his words slurred together. He didn’t even sound like himself.

A dark figure moved in front of him, heavy combat boots and dark pants clear, though little else was. “I’ll get away with this?” The voice wasn’t entirely clear, but when a goose head dropped into his lap he knew what had happened.

“Never… should have trusted you…” He mumbled, trying to raise his head, but a gloved leather hand did it for him, putting a shotgun in his mouth.

“You made a lot of bad decisions, Colonel. Now everyone’s going to have to pay for them,” the voice said, finger moving to the trigger. “Take solace in the fact that you won’t have to see it.”

Just before the trigger was pulled, he had time to form the thought ‘I have to warn the others’, but then the world went black.

And there was nothing.


	4. What You Are In The Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Trying to keep myself on a monthly schedule going forward, so I'm aiming to have the next chapter done around the end of September.
> 
> PLEASE READ THE TAGS BEFORE THIS CHAPTER BECAUSE WE'VE GOT CONTENT WARNINGS FOR THIS FOLLOWING
> 
> \- Torture  
> \- Major Injury  
> \- Emetophobia  
> \- General "Innocent Civilian Death" Warning  
> \- Major Change In Tone
> 
> If you've read my previous work, you know I like my themes dark. This one goes in that direction. If you've read the chapter in When We Were Young on Tom, and Nathan Erikson's murder, it's very in that vein, and if you did not like that, you will NOT like this.
> 
> Have fun kids, this is gunna be a bad day!

Ana knew she’d been sticking her nose where didn’t belong. What Jack and Gabriel did on their own time was their business, not hers. 

But they were both her friends. It was hard not to grow close to people when she spent her every waking moment with them. Adawe was their connection to the UN, Liao spent most of her time at a desk, and Torbjorn, while sometimes on the field, was ultimately still an engineer first and foremost. The end result was that Ana spent a lot more time with the boys. 

Most of the time, it was her, Jack, Gabriel, and Reinhardt. Her boys. She wasn’t used to that. In Egypt she’d been a part of an all female unit, and had been Captain Horus to them. She’d known their names, ate with their families, been friends with them, laughed with them. She’d also lost a lot of them when the real fight against the Omnics started. It made her keenly aware of how fragile life was. How easy it would be for her boys to slip through her fingers, like water.

She loved them. She wanted to protect them. 

Which was difficult when they were all incredibly stupid, stubborn and reckless.

It made her worry all the more about leaving Jack and Gabriel on their own.

“You are worried about them, I can tell,” Reinhardt said, wading through the snow just ahead of her. It was hard to hear him with his helmet on and muffling him.

“Of course I worry about them,” Ana mumbled quietly, watching Reinhardt’s back. “We didn't stick to the plan. They could get into real trouble out there.”

No backup. Not until they reached the Omnium and destroyed the gun turrets that would take out any air support that arrived before then.

She couldn't have left the civilians out there, and she knew that if Gabriel had been forced to make the call he very well might have. In the numbers game, destroying the Omnium would save more people. It didn't make it right, though. And seeing the look of relief on the refugees’ faces, hearing mothers and fathers cry with joy, hearing children in awe of Overwatch rescuing them - and the thought of what may have happened if they were left to die? That she couldn't have lived with. She didn't have it in her.

“It was a tough call,” Sam said quietly from beside her. She supposed her facial expression gave her away. “You made the right decision, though. These people needed help.”

Ana smiled at him weakly. A good man, she didn't doubt. But she'd spent a lot of time with good men and women. The right answer was never so straightforward.

“You think as someone who can save everyone.” She sounded so tired. “Our reality is that we cannot.”

“But we still try. That is the stuff heroes are made of!” Reinhardt chuckled ahead of them.

Reinhardt Ana worried about almost as much as Jack. Not in the same way. Jack was naive, optimistic, and had a good heart that she felt could be taken advantage of. Reinhardt wanted to be a hero out of an old story; he believed in honor, nobility and justice. A real knight in shining armor, and at times she worried he was almost delusional in that regard, but she adored him. He tried so damn hard that she was terrified for him, but she adored him.

And, like Jack, she was terrified he would take a bullet trying to save someone else.

“Perhaps, but this hero will be turning around and looking for her team as soon as we have the civilians to a safe place,” Ana said, glad she at least wasn't giving away how tired she was. And cold, but without Gabriel there to joke with, it wasn't even fun to mention.

_ He and Jack could be dead already.  _ At least she hadn’t heard any gunshots that might indicate they were. The echoes in the mountains were strong, and both OR-14s and Bastions were noisy. If there were to be a fight, it would be heard for miles.  _ They're fine. They have to be _ .

Sam smiled tiredly at her, wrapping his arms around himself for a moment before he looked back to Reinhardt. “We should continue southeast until we reach the lake. Once we're there we should be able to find a pass into the valley. We can reach an extraction point for the civilians there.” He looked back at Ana, like he could feel her concern. “I'll get you back to them. Don't worry. I know what I'm doing.”

Something about the way he said it was actually quite comforting, though Ana couldn't place exactly how. Maybe just his confidence in his abilities, and that it didn't strike her as over-confidence. She had enough problems trying to keep her boys from getting in over their heads. Maybe it was just nice to worry about them without someone pointing out that they were super soldiers who were more likely to survive than any of the other mere mortals.

Maybe Sam was just handsome and very soon wouldn't be her problem. Then she could appreciate him without being too hypocritical, because she knew she'd been hard on Jack and Gabriel. 

She also wasn't wrong. It would be one thing if Jack and Gabriel were at least the same rank (still not great, but better), but with a Commanding Officer, that could go bad. Not just in a way that could physically put them in danger, but emotionally as well. Gabriel should have known better. He'd been  _ around  _ long enough to know better.

_ “I lost my best friend, _ ” he'd said, and she hadn’t had the heart to remind him that so had she. Half her squad had died when a Titan dropped on the UN building in Vienna.

Reinhardt had lost his mentor only a week before that. Torbjorn had discovered that his contributions to the Omnic’s designs had led up to the crisis. Everyone had lost more than they felt they'd won.

Except maybe Jack. She wasn't looking to let that change any time soon.

“I'm certain you do know,” Ana said, giving Sam just a hint of her knowing smile. “I'm counting on you.”

Sam turned a little red, cleared his throat, and walked just a little faster.

If she wasn’t so cold, Ana may have laughed.

The rest of the walk passed in relative silence, with only the occasional sound of parents hushing their children or a crow’s caw breaking up the monotony of their steps crushing snow under their feet. Ana almost found herself wondering if they'd made a mistake.

Had the Omnics taken a different path? Could Sam have simply pointed the refugees in the right direction while they stayed close to Gabriel and Jack? Uncertainty began to seep in. The inescapable fear that she had made a mistake that could kill her friends.

Two hours later, on the edge of the lake, her unsubstantiated fears were replaced by a very real threat.

“How many do you see?” Reinhardt asked her, as quietly as he could manage.

“Two Bastion units on either side of the pass,” Ana said, peering down the scope of her sniper rifle. “Two OR-14s as well. There are tracks through the pass, so I think it is safe to assume this is the path the Omnics will use to reach more populated areas.”

She glanced at Sam, who was visibly shaking. Reality setting in, she was guessing. Civil servants were generally not expected to face armed combatants, and while it was noble in theory, in practice she assumed he might very well shit himself.

She'd seen it happen before.

“Any way around?” Ana asked him, doing her best to sound sympathetic. Avoiding the fight  _ was _ preferable, even though Reinhardt may not have agreed.

“We'd have to, uh…” Sam swallowed, then cleared his throat. “We would have to go around the base of the mountain - then we’re looking at probably… three days? If we can keep up a good pace, which…” He glanced behind them at the refugees hanging back.

“That will take far too long,” Reinhardt said, adjusting his helmet. “Well, Ana, I suppose you and I shall be doing this the hard way.”

Ana smiled despite herself, patting Reinhardt’s arm. “It does seem that way. Try not to charge in before I get into position?”

“I would not dream of it.” Reinhardt chuckled, looking ahead. “I imagine you will take the high ground?”

Ana nodded, checking through her scope. “High and low, I think. Wait for my signal, and I’ll let you know when I’ve disabled their repair systems. Then I’ll take out the Bastions, if you can handle the OR-14s?”

Reinhardt smiled wide. “I was born to handle smashing OR-14s. I’m just glad you can see me do it without anyone in my way.”

Ana chuckled, pulling down her mask. “I’m sure you will impress me, Reinhardt. When I give you the signal, charge. Sam, in the meantime, keep the refugees quiet. Should anything happen to us, take the long way around. Lead these people to safety.”

Sam gave a weak smile, hugging himself. “Try not to let anything happen, okay? I don’t really think I’m hero material.”

“You may surprise yourself,” Ana said, putting her hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to be a warrior to be a hero.”

He nodded, still looking afraid, but determined. That would have to be enough.

~~

“There it is, bright and shiny,” Jack said, looking through his binoculars. “Looks like we have three turrets. We take them out and we can call in an airstrike. There’s a launch pad too for a Titan. I don’t see one set up to go, so we still have time.”

“Good, last thing we’d need,” Gabriel said, holding out his hand as Jack passed him the binoculars. He peered down at the situation below them. Not as much security as he was expecting, which could mean a few different scenarios would meet them inside.

Either the God Virus had been emptying the Omnics out and readying the Titan for launch so everyone would be in position for a massive attack, or there were a shitton ready to go inside the Omnium who would rip Gabriel and Jack to shreds the second they walked through the door. Neither option was great, but at least if the main force was gone they would have a chance to keep the Titan from launching.

“What do you think about the roof? We go down the Titan launch pad, we may be able to get in and out unnoticed,” Jack said, looking thoughtfully at the Omnium. “Damn, wish Ana were here…”

If it weren't so handy, it would be extremely annoying that Jack had started to strategize the same way Gabriel did. He saw the same openings, recognized the same advantages, and usually came to similar conclusions. Such as the fact that Ana was the perfect size to maneuver on the roof, and had such a sharp eye that she would be the most likely to spot any sensors that could detect them.

“Yeah, so do I. But she's playing hero with Reinhardt, so we'll just have to try to do it ourselves,” Gabriel grumbled.

Jack frowned. “We couldn't just leave them out there, Gabe.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Yes, Jack, I know. Leaving the civilians to die wasn’t my plan. But they weren’t exactly convenient.” 

“...doing the right thing isn’t always going to be convenient, Gabe. Doesn’t make it less right,” Jack murmured. 

It was little wonder to Gabriel that the press ate Jack up with a fucking spoon. Captain America couldn’t phrase bullshit any better. Nine times out of ten, though, Jack practiced what he preached.

The one other time, it had been to protect Gabriel.

“Come on, we’ve got to get inside. Lay low,” Gabriel said, deciding it would be better to think about the mission at hand. Not dredge up the past. “Security points?”

“Omnics will have scanners up, but probably not visuals,” Jack said, rubbing his chin. “That was their protocol in Dubai. They could have changed it up, though.”

“Doubt it. They have no reason to think we’ve changed our method of attack and gone for a stealthier approach.” Gabriel chuckled. “Omnics are a lot of things, but the tin cans seem to love underestimating us.”

Jack didn't smile. “For a while they didn't have a reason not to.” He pulled his face mask on, heading forward into the snow.

Gabriel sighed, pulling his own mask on and following after him. Jack was getting tense and quiet, but Gabriel felt much the same way. It was easier to brush off the fear of death with a joke, but his brain kept rewinding back to the night before. Jack in his arms. Saying the words ‘I love you' out loud and making it… real.

He'd joked that he'd be Jack's last and only love, but now he knew he'd been projecting. No one else made him feel like Jack did. He wouldn't let him go for anything, and damn Ana for being right.

What happened to Abbey would not happen to Jack.

Gabriel did his best to shift focus to the task at hand. Thinking too much about Abbey would inevitably summon her.

Reaching the Omnium was difficult in the snow. Even if the Omnics weren’t using visuals, they would notice tracks, which meant taking a long route. By the time they reached the back of the building, Gabriel's toes were numb, and even as they scaled the building it was hard to keep his grip because he couldn't feel his fingers.

They still hauled ass, though, and Jack could sometimes be difficult to keep up with. He did love to rush into things.

They did manage to get in the top with relative ease. The sensors seemed to remain the Omnics’ primary detection method, and silently Gabriel thanked Torbjorn for making sure that their suits were perfectly insulated to prevent detection.

Inside the Omnium, there were no lights. Omnics didn’t need them. Night vision goggles were a staple of their infiltration, and the cookie cutter Omnium design helped, considering the number of times they’d run through.

The turrets they would have to use timed bombs on. Nothing that would go off right away - something that would give them enough time to plant the bombs, get in and out, and then leave. Worst came to worst, if they died, then the bombs would go off regardless. They couldn’t risk the remote if they didn’t make it.

Forty minutes for the first, thirty for the second, twenty for the third. Plenty of time to get in and out, with a little extra time in case things went sideways. Sometimes they didn’t need the spare time.

More often than not, they needed every second of it.

“Gabe, I’ve got something weird on my sensor. You seeing this?” Jack said, while Gabriel set the final charge.

Gabriel had, but he’d elected to ignore it. A strange heat, coming from the basement floor. He figured most likely it was the power core that the Omnics were using, made more prominent considering the cold weather. He said as much, but Jack shook his head.

“No, that’s not usual for their layout. This is different.” Jack checked their time. “We have time still. No interference so far. I think it’s worth checking out. They might be making something new. Could have a chance to get a look before the air strike comes in…”

Gabriel hated the idea of wasting time wandering through an Omnium full of hostile targets, but Jack made a good point.

“Ten minutes,” Gabriel said, signalling Jack. “We don’t find anything, we get out. This isn’t a scouting mission.”

Jack gave a sharp nod, moving down the corridor. Gabriel followed, keeping a wary eye out. It seemed empty. Far too empty for an active Omnium. There should have been more guards, even if the plan was already in motion.

They found some, primarily working on the Titan - which appeared to be almost complete - but they were easily avoidable. Gabriel started to feel a creeping anxiety. Things were running too smoothly. They were getting in and out too quickly. After the disaster in Dubai with so many dead, he expected resistance. That the Omnics would be ready, see them coming a mile away. Gabriel was good, but he wasn’t  _ that _ good. He couldn’t be. He had missed something.

“Here we go…” Jack dropped down into the room filled with heat signatures.

The closer they’d gotten, the more strangely distinct the signatures had become. Separate. Unlinked. Gabriel had been to Jack’s parents’ farm once, and they’d traveled around the area. He’d seen some pig farms, some cows, stuff like that. Weird how the way the heat signatures were seperated made him think of livestock-

“Gabe, I need you down here _ right now _ ,” Jack hissed, his voice suddenly on the edge of panic.

Gabriel dropped down beside him, standing quickly, in case there were Omnics waiting for them.

Quickly he found himself wishing that that was the case.

“Holy shit…” he whispered, eyes wide.

The room was huge, practically a gymnasium, and it was full of people. Not in pods. Hanging from the ceiling on chains, strung up almost like bait from a hook. They had wires attached to them, and every now and then they twitched, like a jolt of electricity woke them up. They were apparently eating and shitting through tubes that hung through the ceiling, which could only mean one thing.

“They’re alive…” Gabriel said, wishing his voice sounded more confident. How many? A hundred? He couldn’t do the math. Couldn’t think of the towns Sam had talked about going dark. The people who had just gone missing.

It was easy to assume dead. Gunned down like so many others. Maybe some were, but the rest were here. Hooked up to the machines, with small Omnics flying up and down the horrific display, checking their connections.

Jack reached out to the person closest to them on the catwalk. He quickly jerked his hand back, hissing with pain as a spark went off, crackling with static electricity on the poor man’s bare skin. His eyelids fluttered, and he moaned around the tube in his mouth, his fingers stretching out rigidly.

“Gabe, call off the airstrike,” Jack said, his voice shaking. “These people are  _ alive _ … they’re…” He yanked off his mask, falling to his knees and vomiting onto the catwalk beside them.

“Jack,  _ no _ !” Gabriel grabbed Jack’s helmet, pulling it back on him. Too late.

The small Omnics whipped around, an alarm sounding so loudly that Gabriel could feel his ears ringing. Blown. They were  _ blown _ .

Gabriel grabbed his shotgun, firing directly into the first of the small creatures as it turned, searching for them. Now the Omnics would know that they could block the sensors. No way around it. “Jack, get yourself together. We have to get the hell out of here!”

Ten minutes.

Jack got to his feet, breathing hard through his mask. “Gabriel, call off the attack! We don’t have time to get these people out!”

Both of them were shaken off their feet when a rocket hit the catwalk, severing the connection and sending them three stories straight down. The landing was hard, knocking the wind out of Gabriel, but it wasn’t enough to break anything, thanks to his enhancements.

Jack was already on his feet, taking aim at the gun turret that took out the catwalk. He fired a helix rocket, hitting true, but Gabriel couldalready see more dropping down. Scanning for where they might be. Gabriel guess that they were probably already activating their optics now that they knew their safeguards weren’t working. They were probably already sending signals, looking for the other members of Overwatch and broadcasting to the God programs to let them know.

The Titans had caught humans by surprise, Overwatch had caught the Omniums by surprise… and now they were even again.

“ _ That is enough. There will be no more fighting, _ ” came a rigid voice over the loudspeaker, the initially harsh peaks of the audio smoothing out as it continued. A command, not a request. Gabriel had heard the God Programs speak before, and they were always more distinct than the usual bunch.

Omnic or human, the ones in charge of conquering had the same condescending tone.

“Make us,” Gabriel said, his shotgun at the ready. He could see more turrets dropping down, circling towards him and Jack.

Then they stopped, just feet away - and turned, taking aim towards the ceiling.

Towards the captives.

“ _ I have leverage, human _ ,” the God Program said.

One of the turrets fired.

The people did not scream as the bullets tore through them. There were some strangled sounds, and the wet noise of human flesh falling to the floor, but no screams.

Jack was shaking with rage beside Gabriel, stepping forward. “No! Stop! You let them go, or we’ll blow this place sky high!”

“ _ Ah, you believe the loss of one Omnium is enough to stop us? That I will be destroyed, now that I know you are here? _ ” Gabriel could almost hear the damn thing laughing at them. It was probably already loading itself to a different location. “ _ I will lose nothing. Lay down your weapons, or these people’s blood will be on your hands _ .”

Gabriel could already see Jack lowering his weapon. The  _ right  _ choice, even when it was hard, Gabriel supposed. Jack only ever did see what was in front of him, and one day it was going to get him killed.

_ Not today, though _ .

“Guess I’ll just have to live with that,” Gabriel said, grabbing Jack’s gun and shooting the next helix rocket at one of the chains holding up the human prisoners.

The God Program screamed in rage, and Jack yelled something, but Gabriel didn’t listen. He pulled a pistol from his side, firing a single sleep dart he’d borrowed from Ana. He’d meant to use it to pacify civilians, if they’d needed too, but he was running out of time. He wasn’t going to fight with Jack. That could come later, when their lives weren’t on the line.

He slung Jack over his shoulder and ran, firing another rocket at the ceiling, knocking more people to the ground, blocking the two members of Overwatch from view as he sped towards the exit.

He could almost pretend that maybe someone would survive the fall and escape.

_ Eight minutes _ .

By the time he reached the hallway, more of the smaller Omnics were on him. These ones weren’t flying, running on two legs and pouring out of the walls in droves. He thought their faces might be guns at first, but the closer he got he realized that they were lasers. Gabriel didn’t have time to fight them, and he could at least gauge that they weren’t as high powered as a Bastion or a standard Omnic unit.

That wasn’t enough to stop him from feeling the heat on his heels as he ran past them. The lasers they emitted burned through his pant legs, and scorched his skin. He could smell burning flesh, but he didn’t stop running. Couldn’t even take the time to kick them.

_ Six minutes _ .

He ran towards the Titan launch pad, sirens blaring in his ears as the Omnics redirected all of their attention away from their previous mission, and straight towards Gabriel. 

All except the Titan. The Omnic builders had rushed to finish it, which meant that at the very least they knew their time was limited.

“God  _ damn _ it, Jack…” Gabriel hissed, shifting Jack on his shoulder. He didn’t know how long the other man would be out cold. He’d never tested it on himself. He’d never wanted to use it on Jack.

“ _ Gabe, call off the airstrike! _ " Not worth the risk. In a debate, he might have been able to explain why. To point out the cities just miles away, full of thousands of refugees who thought they had escaped, who weren’t prepared for a Titan's attack, compared to the dozens in the Omnium. To make the math make sense outside his head, even to Jack.

 

But there wasn't enough time.

_ The good of the many must always outweigh the good of the few _ . Jack couldn’t accept that.  Gabriel wished he lived in a world where that was enough.

Gabriel ran straight down the Titan rather than avoiding staying in the open. There was no point. The God Program wouldn’t risk harming the Titan. Gabriel, however, was not about to let that happen. If he was going to make Jack understand, then the attack had to fail.

If he was going to forgive himself, the attack  _ had _ to fail.

He grabbed a Helix rocket pack from Jack’s belt, throwing it down one of the Titan’s legs and into the joint. He had just enough time to fire his shotgun into that before the first Bastion dropped from a catwalk above onto the Titan’s chest. The subsequent explosion knocked Gabriel off his feet, sending Jack rolling across the floor in one direction, and the Bastion in the other, shrapnel from the Titan’s leg flying across the room.

Gabriel had to try not to scream when he felt metal pierce his back. Not a gunshot, but the scalding hot metal from the Titan. He hit the ground so hard that he nearly lost consciousness, his ears ringing so loudly that he couldn’t hear the sirens anymore. He tried to stay focused. To reach back, find out what the damage was to his body.

He could feel the long sliver of metal protruding from his skin.

No time to take it out. It could kill him if he did.

_ Three minutes _ . Or was it? He didn’t even know if he’d lost consciousness or not.

He forced himself to his feet, grabbing hold of Jack’s arm and hauling him back over his shoulder. The effort made his vision blur and his knees buckle, but he kept going, running straight up the track towards the entrance they’d come through. The Omnics would be right behind him, and he didn’t know if the blast would keep the Bastion or the smaller Omnics away for long. They might stop to try and repair the Titan, but more likely they wouldn’t. The God Program had made it clear that it found the Omnics under its control expendable.

When he reached the roof, the cold air blasted his face, mixed with the undeniable heat of the explosion inside. Snow was starting to fall again, heavier this time, and it made the roof slippery under his feet. He could barely keep himself steady as he headed towards the edge. His muscles screamed as the thought hit him: he still had to climb down.

“Hey Jack…” He laughed, but his voice sounded thready. Weak. He was losing too much blood. “Next time we go on one of these missions there’ll be no deviating from the plan, okay?”

Then something hit him hard from behind, knocking him off his feet and driving the spike even further into him. He looked down and saw it had pierced straight through him, the jagged metal completely impaling him.

“J-Jack… wake up…” He turned over as best he could, reaching for Jack, who lay perilously close to the edge of the Omnium. “T-think we’re… really fucked-”

Something hard hit him again, and he realized it was the Bastion as it flipped him over on his back. It sparked around its waist, clearly trying to change into its turret mode. The blast had damaged it too much.

Gabriel laughed as it dragged him off the ground. He spat in its face, glaring into its single eye, watching as more blood than spittle dripped down it’s metal skin. “Got you, you little fucker.”

A roaring sound engulfed him, then. At first he thought maybe the Bastion had opened fire on him, but the heat came from underneath, and he realized it had to be the large gunnery turrets exploding, collapsing and tearing open the roof as they fell. Gabriel and the Omnic slid along the roof towards the edge, and Gabriel only just had time to grab Jack to keep him from going over the edge. Or at least, going over the edge alone, because when Gabriel’s hand found Jack’s wrist, he found himself going straight over right along with him.

He grabbed onto the edge of the building, holding on as tightly as he could. With his other hand he held tight to the back of Jack’s shirt. He glanced down as quickly as he could, and as far as he could tell Jack was mostly intact - but it was a ten story drop.

“Did you ever think you’d go like this?” Gabriel looked back up, and Abbey looked back down at him, smiling patiently. She ran her hand through her short black hair, chuckling. “Same way I did? Gunned down by Omnics, falling to your death.” She leaned in, resting her hand on his. 

When she dug in her nails, it felt so real that Gabriel gasped in pain. 

“You’re  _ not here _ !” Gabriel hissed, trying to haul himself back up, but with Jack hanging below him he couldn’t get leverage. He didn’t have time. Now that the gunnery turrets were gone, the bombs would drop. He had to be as far away from the Omnium as possible. “Jack, WAKE UP! I need your help!”

“You killed him too, because you didn’t trust him. Way to go, Gabe.” Abbey stood up, licking her lips and raising her foot. “Guess you’re not the big hero you thought you were, huh?”

“YOU’RE NOT HERE!” Gabriel screamed, and as the words left his mouth, he saw she wasn’t.

It was the Bastion standing over him, foot raised.

“Ngh… Gabe?” Jack mumbled from below him. “What’s-?”

The foot dropped on Gabriel’s hand, and he felt his finger bones shatter, his hand break, and his grip slip. He let go, falling back from the building, Jack falling with him.

He laughed as he fell, because the last thing he saw was the bombs dropping from above.

_ Still won, you bastards. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What, did you think I was fucking around?
> 
> As a minor unrelated note, you are going to get some Ana/Reinhardt and Ana/Sam will-they-won't-they stuff in this fic in general, but I don't really consider it a main focus so it isn't in the tags. 
> 
> What WILL be a major things going forward is dealing with PTSD, broken trust and the nature of broken trust in relationships, and some heavily conflicting ideology between the boys, which you can or cannot read into as early indicators of The Fall. I'll get into that as I go, but I just want anyone who might be uncomfortable with that going forward to know the general plan. If there are any tags I missed that you feel like I should have included, please let me know.
> 
> IF YOU ENJOYED THIS, OR HEY ALSO IF YOU DIDN'T, I HAVE EVEN MORE PLACES TO YELL AT ME!
> 
> I am on twitter now! Find me @TheJudgeCoffee  
> With your usual questions, concerns and comments, you can also find me on tumblr at http://youredgedadsareshowing.tumblr.com/  
> Thanks again to Aisu for being my tireless Beta, and for their help especially in figuring out how to warn people that this was going to suck.


	5. Endings and Beginnings

In his dreams, Jack was in a room full of bodies in Tucson. It had been a long time since he’d dreamed about the room. The smell. Hundreds dead because of Nathan Erikson. Blood of families sprayed on the walls. In the real version of events, there had been a few of his colleagues from SEP there. In his dreams, it was Ana, Reinhardt, Torbjorn, Liao… and Gabriel.

He had seen so many bodies torn apart by Omnics. Some ripped to shreds, some with precision holes in their skulls, and some that were just red stains on pavement. It was easy to picture everyone who mattered to him dead, even when he was awake. It was worse in dreams, where he could still smell them.

Then Abbey. It always dissolved into Jack, hanging out of that helicopter, and holding her hand. His fingers tightening around her wrist. She’d slipped away from him, and there was nothing he could do to protect her. She was falling away from him. Then -- darkness.

When he’d woken up he had been freezing cold, with Gabriel holding him. Shouting at something Jack couldn’t make out. He had seen his own feet dangling above nothing but tundra. He hadn’t looked down when they climbed up. He’d only looked forward.

Had that been what Abbey saw, and what she felt, right before she’d died? Had she woken up in time to fall, seeing the ground coming straight at her with nothing she could do about it?

Jack had enough time to gasp before he went straight down. Maybe just enough time to say Gabriel’s name, but he wasn’t entirely certain. The wind rushed around his face. He felt himself swing around, catching the hem of Gabriel’s coat for a moment before he was flipped around again. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the bombs fall.

He had just enough to remember the people left inside before the heat of the explosion touched his skin. Then he hit the ground, and lost consciousness again.

~~

Jack woke up in a haze, both too hot and freezing at the same time. He pulled himself up from the pile of snow he’d been laying in, groaning with the effort. He wiggled his toes, then moved his ankles. It hurt a bit, but he knew what broken bones felt like, and he didn’t have that problem. He lifted his hands, looking at them… missing a glove, but all his fingers were moving.

The Omnium was no more than burning charred rubble, razed to the ground by missiles launched from miles away.  They’d done it. The city was safe. The refugees would be safe. But the people inside the Omnium…

Jack turned over, almost ready to throw up again.

Gabriel had shot them down. All those people. And when Jack had tried to stop him, Gabriel had shot him too.

_ Gabriel _ .

Jack dragged himself up, ignoring how sore he felt. He scrambled through the debris, looking around wildly. Gabriel couldn’t have fallen that far from him.

“ _ Gabe _ !” he called, coughing as he sharply inhaled the cold air. “Gabe… where are you? Come on…” He stumbled through the snow, looking for any sign of him. “GABE!” He shouldn’t yell. There could be Omnics around, he knew. He didn’t even know where his gun was.  _ He could be dead _ .

Then he saw it. Gabe’s hat, sticking out of the snow.

Jack bolted for the hat, throwing back the snow as best he could. He saw blood dotting the snow as he dug Gabriel out. Gabriel’s head was bleeding from the fall. Jack could see the damp red patch through his beanie.

“Come on, I’m getting you out of here…” he mumbled, managing to get his arms under Gabriel’s armpits and pull him out of the snow.

His eyes widened as he surveyed the damage to Gabriel. His pants below the knee were shredded, his legs badly burned. Jack couldn’t tell to what degree the burns had gotten him, but it didn’t look good. A jagged metal spike stuck out of his side, and as Jack inched Gabriel out of the snow, he saw that it had gone straight through him.

Then his hand. His hand was a mangled mess, practically a shapeless red mash.

“God…  _ damn _ it Gabriel…” Jack mumbled, as the anger he felt towards Gabriel slipped away. He couldn’t think about that. He just had to get Gabriel somewhere safe.

He dragged Gabriel out of the snow, moving as gently as he could. Still, every inch he pulled, Jack could see the trail of blood left behind.

“Don’t you die, don’t you fucking die…” Jack mumbled, before he realized he didn’t even know where he was taking Gabriel. They were out in the open, aside from the burning Omnium and the treeline. The treeline was his best bet, in case a second air strike came in.

He had to move carefully through the snow. To lift Gabriel and carry him was a risk, but he wasn’t sure it would be worse than dragging him metal shrapnel sticking through him. He didn’t know how to remove it safely. He could do something small, but this was huge. He didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious, let alone how long Gabriel had had the thing stuck in him.

It felt like it took an age to get Gabriel to the other side. When he did, he lay him down against a tree, trying to keep any pressure from going onto his wound. Or at least, any pressure that Jack didn’t want going on the wound.

He tore up his sleeve, wrapping it as best he could around Gabriel’s middle, and tightening it. With his other sleeve he did his best to tie off Gabriel’s wrist, but he was afraid to touch it or even squeeze it.  _ Will they have to amputate his hand after this _ ? He couldn’t get the thought out of his head.

What if Gabriel was mangled for life, and it was all because…

_ Because he doesn’t trust me _ . Jack tightened the tourniquet a little tighter than was probably reasonable. “Why did you just…  _ fuck _ you, Gabriel,” he muttered, unsure he wanted to even try to loosen it. It could make things worse.

There was so much blood. He didn’t know what to do about Gabriel’s legs.

He undid his pack. It looked like Gabriel had lost his, and half of Jack’s things had fallen out. They had left some of their things higher on the cliffs, but Jack wouldn’t be able to get to them without getting to Gabriel. No tent. No protective barriers. He had his sleeping bag still, and some first aid packs, but none of those were enough by a long shot.

Again, he found himself wishing desperately that Ana were there. She always knew what to do.

Gabriel groaned a little under Jack’s hand, but he didn’t open his eyes as Jack finished tying off his makeshift bandages. He shivered in the cold, and his lips were beginning to turn blue. Jack didn’t think he was faring that much better. He couldn’t feel his fingers or his toes anymore, and his exposed skin wasn’t helping much. He knew his best bet was to lay Gabriel out on the sleeping bag and build a fire, but fire would attract Omnics.

“Have to risk it…” Jack mumbled, digging out the snow to create a small cradle for Gabriel,  before laying the sleeping bag down and moving Gabriel on top of it. He unzipped the base, just enough to put Gabriel’s legs inside, and then he set to work on the fire.

Finding anything that worked for kindling was more difficult than finding something already on fire. The Omnium was burning, with huge swaths of it practically melting. The wood, though, was damp, to say the least. Instead he wound up settling on gathering some burning debris and bringing it closer, and he had nothing else to do but hope that it wouldn’t produce toxic fumes.

Then he just had to wait. Wait, and stare at the ruins of the Omnium, and think about every single person inside that Gabriel had let die.

“You didn’t even give me a chance,” Jack mumbled, pulling his knees to his chest. He pulled out his comm and checked for messages. Or rather, he tried to, but when he listened it only rang through static. “Fuck.” Second try, then. He climbed back over to Gabriel, reaching into his coat.

Gabriel’s eyes snapped open, and with his bad hand he tried to grab Jack’s - before the pain kicked in and he let out a scream.

“Gabe!” Jack put his hand over Gabriel’s mouth, holding him down. “Stay still, stay  _ still _ , I’m here, you’re hurt-”

Gabriel panted in pain, his eyes squeezing together as he tried to keep his breath even. It didn’t work. “Fuck…  _ fuck _ … burns… burns…” He reached down with his other hand, patting his jacket. “S-sleeping dart… from Ana… j-just fucking h-hit me with it…”

Jack reached into Gabriel’s jacket, his frigid fingers wrapping around the sleeping dart. For a moment he thought about just not doing it. Some petty revenge for what Gabriel had done to him.  _ Some fucking partner you are.  _ But he forced himself to calm down, just a bit.  _ Being mad at him doesn’t change anything _ .

He jabbed Gabriel with the needle, and instantly he was down. His breathing evened a little, but it was still labored. Bad. Really bad, if Gabriel didn’t even want to be awake for it.

“…don’t die,” Jack whispered, even as he found himself looking at the burning Omnium where all those people had been. All dead, because he couldn’t stop Gabriel. Because Gabriel didn’t trust him. Or because Gabriel ran the numbers and decided it just wasn’t worth it to try save them. “But I could have, you know?”

Jack took Gabriel’s comm from his jacket pocket, sending the call out to Ana. “Ana… we’re here. Near the Omnium. Please, when you’re ready… come and get us. Commander Reyes, he’s… he’s really hurt.” He rested his head on his knees. “Please just come.”

_ Please don’t let him die _ . Even if Jack wasn’t sure he ever wanted to look at Gabriel again.

~~

Ana could feel the broken ribs from where one of the OR-14s had hit her chest so hard that she’d nearly lost consciousness, but she still rode in the helicopter to find Jack and Gabriel. Reinhardt rode beside her, his head bleeding from a bullet that had grazed him when his shield had broken.

Sam had insisted on coming along with them once the civilians were moved to safety. “I can find them, no matter where they’ve ended up.”

Ana had believed him, more or less. He’d navigated better than she’d anticipated he would, and that was enough to make her want him along. Though it would be dangerous, since there would still be Omnics in the woods. They might return to the Omnium. They might not. It was unlikely that they would attack Vancouver. They might try and start up a new Omnium somewhere else, which was more likely. It would be easier to track them now that they had been uprooted.

Torbjorn would be tracking them. If they were  _ very _ lucky, then they could follow the Omnics to other existing Omniums. Ana wasn’t counting on them being that lucky. It would be nice, but too much else had gone wrong.

She needed to find Jack. He had sounded shaken on the comm message he’d left. “ _ Commander Reyes… he’s really hurt _ .”

He hadn’t specified, but that was enough for her to know it was bad.

“There it is.” Reinhardt nodded down, looking at the burning wreckage of the Omnium. There was practically a crater where it would have been. Overwatch didn’t leave anything behind that the Omnics could use to rebuild.

Ana scanned the ground as they moved in to land, letting out a long sigh of relief when she saw a small figure waving at the helicopter. Jack.

Reinhardt was out of the helicopter before Ana could move, running towards Jack. Ana wasn’t far behind, hitting the ground running.

“Jack-!”

“No time, you have to come with me, I don’t know how long I can keep him going!” Jack yelled back at them, waving them towards the treeline. Ana could see a fire burning, too far away to be part of the Omnium.

Reinhard followed, stopping briefly just to make sure that Ana could keep up.

“I’ve got her, Crusader,” Sam said, nodding up at him. “Help Morrison.”

Reinhardt still looked at Ana, waiting for her approval.

Ana nodded, holding her ribs and gritting her teeth. “Go, help the Commander. I’ll follow.”

Reinhardt looked worried, but he nodded, turning in the snow and marching through with Jack. It was sweet that he worried, but they had other things to focus on.  _ Jack, what the hell happened _ ?

Sam offered Ana an arm, and Ana suspected that it was less a romantic gesture and more because she looked as awful as she felt. She braced herself against his arm, sighing. “That awful, I see?”

“Huh?” Sam said, blinking as Ana put her weight onto him.

“When the OR-14 hit me, did it look that bad?" Ana asked, trying not to be annoyed as UN paramedics brushed past her. She tried to pick up speed, but when she did it meant breathing more heavily. Which hurt. A  _ lot _ .

“Yeah, it looked that bad,” Sam said, smiling, but he looked more ill than he did jovial. He had a bit of a green tinge to his skin, “I was worried when I saw Mr. Wilhelm’s shield shatter but… he’s a lot… he’s bigger than you are. Is all.”

“Perhaps, but I’m tougher, you’ll find. Reinhardt balks at stubbing his toe,” Ana said with a small chuckle. Her humor faded when she saw what waited for her up ahead, and heard the paramedics going back and forth.

“Pulse is weak, he needs to be stabilized fast-”

“Losing blood here-”

“Lieutenant Wilhelm, we need your help moving him and getting back to the helicopter-”

Even as Sam began to direct Ana back towards the helicopter, bringing Jack along with them, it was hard to get the image of Gabriel out of her head. He shouldn’t have been alive, she knew that. No one should have survived that kind of blow.

The last thing she’d done was tell him off.

The trip back was a blur, the sounds of beeping medical equipment and whirling helicopter blades, the images of Jack holding bandages against Gabriel’s leg, and Ana holding the huge piece of metal inside him still so the paramedics could work around it. She hated the helplessness she felt. So often she was in control on the battlefield, and yet she’d lost so many friends and colleagues. She envied the paramedics, and, later, the doctors when they arrived at Vancouver Hospital, who took Gabriel away from them.

They could do something for him. What did she have?

“-Amari? Ana?” Sam had whispered to her. It was hard to listen while she watched Reinhardt taken away to have his head treated, and Jack swept off by UN officials waiting to do a press conference.

“You should go with Jack, Sam,” Ana said, watching more doctors coming her way. None of it felt entirely real. In two years, Overwatch hadn’t lost a member of their team. They’d stuck together, moved as a tight-knit squad that had seemed unbreakable. Probably  _ invincible _ , to the general public. How quickly she felt like she was back in Vienna, realizing that she was the only member of her squad still alive. That everyone she’d fought with for years had been crushed in  _ seconds _ .

“Yeah, but you should go with the doctors too, okay? For your ribs. They need to make sure you’re alright,” Sam said, hugging himself again. It was funny what an obvious tell he had when he was afraid.

_ He’s sweet to worry _ . Though Ana knew she wasn’t exactly radiating confidence.  _ I broke off with Reinhardt.  _ I _ left Jack and Gabriel to face the Omnium alone _ . And if she hadn’t, the refugees would have walked straight into the OR-14s and the Bastions who had been waiting to mow them down.

“I’ll be fine.” Ana said, as kindly as she could manage, patting Sam’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Reassure the public. Everything will be fine.”

Would it, though? If Overwatch lost its Strike Commander, what would that do to the world’s morale?

_ Could I ever forgive myself _ ?

She didn’t have any answers.

~~

Gabriel dreamed about Jack. About the couch back in SEP where they’d spent so much time together. About Jack’s naked chest, covered in bite marks Gabriel had left on him. About his quiet moans and small cries every time Gabriel would kiss a mark and bite down again. It was so easy to get Jack going with just the right application of pain and restraint. Holding Jack’s hands behind his back, licking down his spine, watching him grind his cock against the couch because Gabriel wouldn’t touch him. Sometimes Gabriel wouldn’t even let him do that. It was easier to manage in Overwatch.

Their own rooms, their own toys. He’d invested in a harness for Jack’s last Christmas present, which the fucker had broken on its fourth outing.  _ Oh well, makes him easy to shop for _ .

“ _ Que bonitos ojos tienes, debajo de esas dos cejas _ …” Abbey was singing in the background, a little off key as she tried to tune his guitar. She’d never been any good with music, and she’d joked than Juan had sucked all the talent out of her more than once.

“Or eaten it out of me, am I right? Eh? Eh?” It was easy to summon up that image as well. Abbey laughing at a dirty joke. Her short dark hair. Her dark eyes.

“Fuck, how does the next part go?” she asked, looking back at Gabriel on top of Jack. “It’s  _ debajo de asas _ , again… and then… right, duh,  _ que bonitos  _ _ ojos tienes _ ... ”

A string broke.

“I can only remember the English words. Juan would be so disappointed.”

Gabriel woke up, staring at the blank off-yellow ceiling of a hospital. He couldn’t feel much of anything, the tingling feeling of whatever painkillers they’d pumped into him leaving a deadened hazy feeling. It was better than the searing pain he’d felt the last time he’d woken up, but he didn’t enjoy it much either. It made it hard to take stock of his body.

He started by tilting his head as much as he could to look down.  He wasn’t wearing a blanket, which felt strange. He had a hospital gown on, but it was open in the front, and he could see the IV drips that seemed to be tapped into every conceivable vein he had. He could see wires coming out from under the gown, hooked up to the half dozen machines monitoring him. His ankles were in thick, cushy, straps, and his legs were in plastic casts that didn’t actually touch his skin. Under them he could see skin grafts along his legs.

Not great, but not amputated.

Scanning further up, he arrived at his side. He was wrapped in heavy bandages, that much he could feel even if he couldn’t get a good look at them, and they’d obviously removed the shrapnel. He wondered how long that surgery had taken them with the leg and side injuries, not to mention his-

His hand.

He couldn’t look at it for too long, because it left a tightness in his chest that he didn’t want to think about. Or how it hurt to breathe and his throat was getting tighter. Or his nose starting to drip. Or his eyes getting blurry and wet.  _ I’m not going to cry, I’m not going to  _ fucking _ cry. _

The hand was wrapped in dressing, which he would have expected, but it was all the wires and splints around them that gave away just how serious that wound was. He couldn’t move his fingers. He couldn’t  _ feel _ his fingers, and he couldn’t see them. Just everything they’d stuck inside his hand to keep him from moving it.

Even though he knew with the painkillers he was probably on, he wouldn’t  _ feel _ pain, he could still remember it. The Omnic’s foot coming down on him. The immediate  _ searing _ pain that had shaken his entire body. He could feel it again. He couldn’t be feeling it, he knew that, but he  _ did _ .

“Stop… stop…  _ STOP! _ ” He wasn’t even sure it was his voice screaming until the doctors and nurses came in, holding him down as he tried to pull himself off the bed.

Abbey watched him from the corner of the room, leaning on his abuelita’s near skeletal corpse. She put a cigar to her lips and smiled at him, shrugging.

“C'est la vie, Gabbi,” Abbey said, blowing a smoke ring into the room.

Everything went dark again with the hiss of an injection.

~~

Ana stayed at the Canadian UN HQ, her tablet showing the report she should have been working on, and the TV on, replaying the press conference for the fifteenth time. As soon as it ended, it was easy to find it on another channel, or find pundits talking about it. Jack and Sam had held up well enough, though Sam had seemed strained, and Jack had seemed… absent. Which was noticed and commented on by everyone involved.

“-Morrison, can you confirm the reports from the hospital that several members of the Overwatch Strike Team were injured in the raid on the Omnium?”

“I can’t get into specifics, but yes. A combination of bad weather, a heavy Omnic presence, and rough terrain made it more difficult than our previous missions. Several members of the team were injured, but they’re in good spirits and are expected to make a full recovery.” Jack had been smiling, praising the good work of Overwatch, the UN, the Canadian government, the assistance from the Alaskan border patrol who had helped refugees… but Ana knew better. It didn’t reach his eyes.

No one had spoken to him about any of his teammates, she was sure of that. He was talking out of his ass. They were saying Reinhardt might have post concussive syndrome, that Ana herself had three cracked ribs, and Gabriel… no one had given a lot of specifics about Gabriel. He’d live, they’d said. That was as good as any of them had gotten.

Petras was coming to meet them in Vancouver, Adawe had already given Torbjorn the news when Ana had arrived. They’d be giving their reports to him person. She didn’t know why he’d feel the need to come all that way, and Adawe hadn’t given Torbjorn the whole story as to why it was. Ana’s best guess was that it could be because the team had split up, and the mess wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t. If it came to that, she knew she’d take on the blame from Reinhardt. He’d done as he was asked.

It would be hard to take it off Gabriel’s shoulders, but surely the people they’d managed to save would mean something? They couldn’t have left them there.

Ana sighed, pouring herself a scotch that she’d perhaps a tad unsubtly taken from the ambassador’s liquor cabinet. If she wanted to give Ana hell later, that was fine, but the idea of leaving the building made her feel exhausted.

She looked out the barred window at the city, which buzzed with life. Nowhere in the press conference had anyone mentioned Vancouver itself had been in danger, nor would anyone. Better to let the innocent civilians continue on as though nothing had happened. Some might worry or speculate, but no Omnic had set foot in the city. Children would go to school the next day. Malls would stay open. People would still watch TV. The world would keep turning.

There was a soft knock on the doorframe, and Ana glanced over. She smiled a little when she saw Sam standing there, looking a little surprised to see her.

“Still awake? I figured you’d want to rest, considering the day you’ve had,” Sam said, making his way in. “Mind if I join you? I just finished my debrief.”

“Of course, take a seat. Though I’m afraid I only have the one glass,” Ana said, making room on the couch. It felt strange to be alone. Torbjorn was assisting the Canadians with proper tracking equipment, Reinhardt was on bedrest, Jack was… She didn’t know where Jack was. She hadn’t seen him. At the hospital, perhaps? They wouldn’t have let him close to Gabriel, and he attracted a lot of attention as the face of Overwatch. Petras and Adawe had likely forbidden him from going.

More likely he’d been barricaded in his room and didn’t want to see anyone else. She’d sent him a comm message when she’d been discharged, but he hadn’t answered her. He might not have checked. It was hard to say.

“That’s alright, I don’t drink,” Sam said, taking a seat on the couch next to her, his eyes traveling to the TV screen. “The press conference went alright, I thought. Considering.”

“You did well. I wouldn’t have blamed you for sitting it out,” Ana said, sipping the scotch. She contemplated just downing it, but that would be an insult to a good vintage. 2020.

“Someone had to make sure the right credit was given out. May as well have been a humble public servant.” Sam smiled weakly, looking down at his hands. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget what I saw out there. I don’t know how any of you can do it… I honestly thought I was going to crap myself when you and Lieutenant Wilhelm went up against those Omnics alone. And the idea of Commander Reyes and-”

“You get used to it.” Ana cut him off, not wanting to dwell. She lifted her legs off the floor and rested them on the couch, lightly pushing at Sam’s thigh. Just to tease. She liked the man, and he was handsome enough.

Their business had also, technically, concluded.

Sam looked a bit surprised at the touch, but he pushed her leg in return, just lightly. Still, irritatingly, afraid she might break, Ana suspected.

“I’ve been shot, stabbed, clubbed… it is hard not to think of something the Omnics have not done to me,” Ana said, her attention shifting out the window. At the city. “All of that, I can take. I’m not afraid to die. Not if it means someone else makes it to tomorrow.”

“Heh… damn, you’re brave,” Sam said, holding himself again. “I kept thinking I should help you guys fight back. Probably better I didn’t. Would have gotten in the way.”

Maybe the lightness of his kick was less that he was afraid she’d break and more that  _ he _ would. That was sort of cute, actually.

“Absolutely better that you didn’t. And you would have, coincidentally. It was dangerous enough for Reinhardt and I to attack them without Jack and Gabriel…” She felt herself slipping back towards thinking about Gabriel. “I’m no medic. I couldn’t have done much if you were hurt.”

Or for Reinhardt. Or for herself. Snipers didn’t have much need for medical training, but in the war zones she was being flung into, they needed more than what they had.

“Seems like you don’t like that much,” Sam said, leaning in towards her, seeming genuinely curious. “Thinking about changing to being a medic?”

She hadn’t been, not really, until just then. Or maybe she had for a long time. She’d spent a lot of time watching the world through a scope. No one ever saw her coming. The Omnic crisis had changed everything. She was spending more and more time next to her comrades, watching them get hurt, and there was very little she could do to make it stop.

“Perhaps not a medic, but… changes need to be made. We need to be better prepared for injuries in the field. We’ve been lucky so far.” Ana sipped her drink again, sighing. “They could have died out there without us.” She and Reinhardt could have too.

“It’s not your fault, Ana. You can’t be everywhere at once,” Sam said, tentatively putting his hand on her knee. “You’re good, but you’re not that good.”

Ana smiled weakly, reaching out and putting her hand on his. He was right, she knew that much. You couldn’t save everyone. She’d lost enough to know that. But she  _ had _ to keep trying.  _ Saving one life is as if saving the whole of humanity. _ She’d never considered herself to be fiercely religious… but she believed those words. She strived to bring them from the page into the real world.

In a war where they could lose thousands in a day, the weight could sometimes feel more than a little crushing. But every single person they saved still  _ mattered _ .

“…want to get out of here, Sam?” Ana asked, not wanting to dwell on the matter any longer. Gabriel could have died, true, but he hadn’t. They’d saved Vancouver. They’d saved the refugees who’d needed them. That called for some celebration with a handsome date, even if she felt like shit. “Go dancing. See a movie. Anything that isn’t dwelling here?”

Sam looked a little surprised, but he nodded, smiling at her. “Yeah, but only if I get to drive, okay? That scotch is strong stuff.”

“Heh, you should go to an Egyptian bar.” Ana snorted, but she’d concede to that point. “Show me the beauty of Vancouver.”

She needed to remind herself of what they’d saved, not what they’d lost.

~~

Gabriel came back to consciousness slowly. He watched doctors and nurses make their way in and out. They talked to him, but he didn’t really remember what they said. He had a faint ringing in his ears whenever someone spoke to him. There were some words he remembered. “We may be able to…” and “There is the possibility that…” and a lot of talk about his hand that he didn’t want to hear.

Briefly he saw Adawe and Petras, but he blissfully passed out in the middle of whatever they wanted to tell him. They’d seemed calm enough, even though Gabriel didn’t want to talk to them. He wanted to see Jack. He  _ needed _ to see Jack.

Sometimes he saw his abuelita. The same near skeletal version of her from right before she died that he  _ always _ saw when he was stressed. The version with blood leaking from her mouth, her hair thin and patchy, and her skin pulled so tightly over her skin that it seemed to crack over her bones. She would leer over him, too blind to see Gabriel, but she sniffed him. When she spoke, he could barely hear her. “You smell of death.”

“You do smell  _ terrible _ ,” Abbey said, taking a seat on the end of his bed, smoking a cigar. She blew it towards him, letting it fill the room. “Think you’ll ever play a guitar again, Gabe?”

“How long have I been here?” Gabe croaked out. His throat was so dry he almost couldn’t catch his breath.

“Two days.” It wasn’t Abbey who said it, but Gabriel’s vision snapped to Jack, who was  _ actually _ sitting at the end of his bed, staring out the dark window.

His hair was a mess and he hunched over, elbows resting on his knees. It didn’t look like he’d slept, with dark circles under his eyes that almost seemed to take up half his cheeks. For a second Gabriel thought someone had punched Jack in both eyes.

“You look like shit,” Gabriel said, managing a choking laugh.

Jack didn’t laugh, which meant Gabriel looked even worse.

“That bad, huh?” He tried to follow up, but Jack didn’t look at him.

Jack sighed, his shoulders slumping, if possible, even further down. “That’s how it’s going to be, is it?”

Gabriel tried to focus as the slow unsettling feeling of what might be happening sank in. He felt his muscles tense and his guts twist into knots. He tried to sit up, but he couldn’t move to do it. He wanted Jack to  _ look _ at him.

“Jack, you… you panicked. I couldn’t-”

Jack didn’t let him finish. “You killed all those people, and I spent today  _ lying _ about it for you.”

Gabriel didn’t have an answer for that. The only answer he did have, he regretted as soon as he said it. “I didn’t ask you to do that for me.”

Jack stood up, going for the door. Gabriel tried to reach for him, but it was his hand… what was left of his hand. And it was still strapped down.

“Jack-”

“Don’t,” Jack growled, and Gabriel hadn’t seen Jack the kind of angry he was right then. It was nothing overt. He didn’t throw anything at Gabriel. He didn’t get violent. He just glared at Gabriel over his shoulder with a look that radiated disgust and disappointment. Like when Gabriel had told his abuelita he wasn’t going to Church anymore. Like Gabriel was a neighbourhood dog who’d bitten a baby.

Like Gabriel wasn’t his hero anymore.

“When you’re back on your feet, and all of this is cleaned up… I’m out,” Jack said, his voice so void of the emotion Gabriel was used to for Jack that it  _ hurt _ . “You do what you want with Overwatch, but I’m done.  _ We’re _ done.”

Then Jack left. And Gabriel had never been more alone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that happened.
> 
> Sad? Angry? Want to strange me via the power of the internet? Find me on Tumblr at http://youredgedadsareshowing.tumblr.com/ or on twitter @TheJudgeCoffee
> 
> Thanks to Aisu for putting up with my terrible grammar. I couldn't survive without them!


	6. Jack's Day

The press conference hadn’t felt like the others. Jack was used to the conferences - the questions, the cheers, the relief that humanity came closer and closer to normalcy every time Overwatch came back from a mission. That all brought closure for people. Even after Dubai, where everything had gone to shit, and a lot of people had died that shouldn’t have, Overwatch were still the big damn heroes in the end.

This time he’d felt cold. He’d still felt like he had blood on his hands and his face, and he’d wondered how much was his and Gabriel’s and how much belonged to the people they’d left behind.

He’d seen on the news that night that even the commentators had said something like ‘the briefing was shorter than usual, and Morrison declined to make a detailed statement,’ but Jack hadn’t watched with the same rapt nervous attention he usually did. He hadn’t sat with the whole team and laughed with them, or had Torbjorn pausing every time he was sure Jack was making a weird face, or Ana ruffling his hair, or Reinhardt making them all popcorn, or…

Or Gabriel massaging his shoulders.

He didn’t sleep that night. He tried. He’d even taken some over the counter melatonin. It had left him half-delirious. He may have dozed a few hours, he wasn’t sure, because all he remembered was the ceiling, and looking out the window. When he did close his eyes, he saw people hanging from the ceiling. All their faces. Just like in that room in Tucson.

If he could see their faces, that meant he could smell them. And if he started to smell them, then he could fill in their voices. Their stories. Imagine the people who’d loved them. People who might miss them.

People who would never see their loved ones again, and all because of him.

_ And because of Gabriel _ . Because Gabriel didn’t trust him. Because Gabriel hadn’t  _ listened _ to him.  _ We could have saved them. If we had worked together… _ But they hadn’t. Gabriel would have literally rather had Jack  _ unconscious _ and a liability than able to make his own decisions.

Maybe Gabriel did it to try and protect him. Keep Jack from getting himself killed. Maybe he just genuinely believed that there was no other way. “But that’s the problem, isn’t it?” he mumbled to himself, watching as dawn’s first light crept through his temporary bedroom window.

He had coffee by himself that morning. He didn’t know where Ana was, and Reinhardt was being looked after because of his concussion. Gabriel was still in the hospital. 

Finally, Torbjorn was the first to meet him, and he didn’t look much better than Jack did.

“Up all night working on tracking the stray Omnics,” Torbjorn said, gesturing at himself. He sat down on a stool beside Jack at the kitchen table. “What’s your excuse? Worried about the Commander?”

“Yes,” Jack said, staring into his cup of coffee. “Yes, and… other things. Adawe and Petras are both here, I think. They sent me a message…” Which he had only sort of read. He didn’t know when he was supposed to be meeting with them. “Petras has to meet with the Canadian and American ambassador, and I need to give a full report ,and…” And what was he supposed to say to them? How could he even begin to explain?

“What? Are you worried because the Commander was hurt? Or because you split with Reinhardt and Ana? Things happen. You know that, kid,” Torbjorn said, as though he was all that older than Jack was. Hell, Torbjorn was younger than  _ Gabe _ . “You had a close call. But you’re okay, and the Commander will be too.”

“No, it’s…” Jack clung more tightly to his cup. “Torbjorn, why would Omnics want to keep humans in an Omnium? Why alive? As batteries? Or--”

“Nonsense. Humans aren’t an effective power source.” Torbjorn shrugged, seeming to brush it off quickly, until a moment later he paused. “Wait… what do you mean? What  _ happened _ in that Omnium?”

Jack felt the handle of his mug snap off in his fingers. “Shit… I… shit-”

“Jack were there  _ people _ inside?” Torbjorn said, almost standing on his stool, his look so intense that Jack was at a bit of a loss for words.

How was he supposed to explain?

In lieu of that, he just nodded. “We… didn’t save them.” Not  _ couldn’t _ . But didn’t.

Torbjorn’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to talk right as their communicators pinged to let them know they’d been summoned. He looked back at Jack, then down at his communicator again, letting out an angry groan. “Fuck, Jack… You have to tell them. And just… don’t talk too much.”

\---

Jack talked too much.

With Adawe sitting at the table in her full regalia, and Petras in a full suit, Jack gave a full rundown of everything that had happened, more or less. He left out the sex, and when he got to the moment he had to explain what happened, for the first time, he lied to his bosses.

Jack rarely saw Petras. The man was, after all, the Director of Overwatch, appointed by the United Nations to oversee the joint project, their funding, and ultimately the fate of Overwatch. Adawe was the under-secretary-general  _ of _ the United Nations. They outranked Gabriel, and sure as hell outranked Jack. Oddly, Jack usually saw her more often than Petras, but he thought that may have been because of paranoia on her end. Between the two, she was easier to talk to. Maybe it was just that she was a career politician who listened carefully and chose her words with precision that Jack always appreciated. She was decisive. Understanding. She  _ appreciated _ what they were doing.

Petras had always struck Jack as a bit more of a pencil pusher, or perhaps a babysitter, who was convinced that ultimately anything the Strike Team did wrong would ruin his career.

In fairness, Jack did believe that was probably true.

They were also the people who most needed to know what the Omnics had been doing, and the last people who needed to know what Gabriel had done.

“How many people?” Adawe asked quietly, standing in front of the consulate window and staring at the street below. “What kind of collateral damage are we talking about here?”

“Over a hundred, I think? I’m not sure,” Jack admitted, looking down at his hands. “We couldn’t… save them. By the time we knew where they were, the bombs had been set, and…” the lie, “they were right under where we were setting them off. We couldn’t get back in time. When we tried… we were ambushed on the way out. That’s when things went sideways.”

He had almost hoped it would be hard to lie. That maybe his morals would have stood in the way, and every single fiber of his body telling him that what Gabriel had done was  _ wrong _ would be enough, and he could just throw Gabriel under the bus and be done with it.  _ We left all those people to die _ .

Remembering that was enough to make him put his head in his hands. He could feel tears welling up, and realized it might even seem like remorse at a friendly fire incident. Helping his own narrative.  _ Lie about what Gabriel’s done. Lied about what happened to Nathan Erikson.  _ He smiled and nodded and talked like a puppet whenever someone needed him to do it. When it benefited him, and when it benefited Gabriel, he would just put on a brave face and be whoever they needed him to be.

_ What does that say about me _ ?

“-what uses could they have, if not human batteries?” Petras was asking Torbjorn.

Torbjorn scowled. “They’re not… Humans are not viable power sources. The only reasons Omnics might  _ need _ humans in the setup Jack described would be… maybe to study brain waves? Do some mapping? That was part of how we originally designed them. It wouldn’t be all that shocking if they were attempting some self evolution. The tin cans don’t have us to do it for them… unless they’re using us to do it for them.” He shrugged. “That’s my best guess, with what we have. I’ll have to check the setup, see what we can make of the rubble.”

“Alright. We’ll send you down now that the tracker is ready, we can have that… diplomat follow up with the rest of the Canadians about following the Omnics,” Petras said, standing and clasping his hands behind his back.

Adawe cleared her throat, glancing at Petras, then back at Jack and Torbjorn, sighing, though Jack wasn’t sure what was bothering her. “Yes, that will do for now. We’ll have to wait for Commander Reyes, Amari, and Wilhelm to recover fully before we can attack another Omnium in full force… But Morrison, there is one other thing.”

Jack froze, his brain jumping to everything else that he could have missed. Everything that could have gone wrong. Every way he could have fucked it up. Every way he had  _ lied _ to his superiors, not just by avoiding the truth, like his relationship with Gabriel, but hidden a war crime from them. Did they know? Had they only been humoring him? Had they-?

“I know considering what happened down there with the civilians that you’re not… in a good place right now” Adawe said, if anything sounding incredibly sympathetic, not accusatory. “Still, you should hear from us before anyone else. Colonel Erikson died yesterday night.”

Jack stared at her, blinking slowly as a cold feeling settled over him. He hadn’t thought much about the Colonel, except in the context of his nephew Nathan. They hadn’t been friends, or even  _ friendly _ , but the Colonel had been his superior officer, and in charge of SEP. He had been a fine leader, as far as Jack could gauge of the man, though he had put far too much faith in Nathan. He wasn’t sure what Adawe expected to make of his death… and really, Jack wasn’t either. Could he mourn a man he hadn’t really known? Whose nephew he had killed?

_ You didn’t kill him. I did _ , Gabriel had said once, after it happened.  _ Don’t put this all on yourself _ .

“I… how?” Jack asked. It was the only thing he could think to say. Adawe hadn’t known Erikson, neither had Petras or Torbjorn. Maybe they had met when Adawe had been picking her recruits for Overwatch? He couldn’t imagine they’d been friends.

“We… don’t have all of the details yet. But it…” Adawe looked to Petras for some support, but he didn’t offer any. “We  _ believe _ it may have been a suicide.”

“ _ Suicide _ ?” That would have been Jack’s last guess. “I need to sit down.”

Torbjorn gave his shoulder a small pat, looking concerned. “You’re already sitting down, Jack.”

_ Fuck _ . Jack put his head on his hands, running his fingers through his hair. Trying to get a grip. “I… sorry. Is there going to be a funeral?”

Adawe nodded. “Yes, I wanted to tell you and Gabriel in person. It’ll be a few days from now. His family is making arrangements. We thought you might want to go, though Gab--” she glanced at Petras, “Commander Reyes may not be up to it, depending on how the next surgery goes.”

Jack felt sick, and Torbjorn very visibly winced.

“What have the doctors said about him? Do we know?” Torbjorn asked, glancing back over at Jack.  Jack couldn’t really read his expression; his eyes were getting blurry, and he hoped it was only from lack of sleep.

“He’ll survive, that much is clear. He’ll need some time, because of all the internal damage, but they were the most worried about his hand,” Adawe said, looking grim. “We’ll see what happens from there. After the next surgery.”

“Sorry, ma’am, may I be excused?” Jack said, standing again. “I didn’t get much sleep.”

Adawe nodded slowly, glancing at Petras, who said nothing. “Go on, get some rest.”

Jack nodded and left, on autopilot as he headed towards his room. He was thinking about Gabriel’s hands. The feeling of his bare skin against Jack’s own. His thumbs tracing over Jack’s nipples. His fingers squeezing against Jack’s ass. The soft feeling of Gabriel’s lips, and the way he said ‘I love you’, and the brief moment where Jack had been so relieved and happy that the mission hadn’t mattered. All that had mattered was Gabriel, and that they were in love, and…

And when they’d been fucking in a cave, those people had been dying.

He didn’t realize Torbjorn had followed him until he was almost back to his room, and the other man may as well have been yelling at him. “Jack! Stop walking so damn fast!”

Jack slowed down, leaning against a wall. “I--oh. Torbjorn, sorry, I…”

“You’re a fucking mess, kid,” Torbjorn said, panting and resting his hands on his knees. “Look, I’ll just-- I’ve got a map of the Omnium. All I need you to do is put an X on where the people were being kept, so that way we can dig in. Find out what they were using them for.” He straightened up, handing Jack a haphazard map and a pen.

Jack held it against the wall, tracing the path he and Gabriel had taken as best he could remember. He marked where he remembered the entrance to the lower floor was, where the chamber full of people was, before he traced his pen over it again, closing his eyes to visualize it. When he did, he just saw the bodies in Tucson again.

“Sorry, I… I really think I need to lie down. Can we do this later?” Jack said, swaying as his eyes snapped open.

Torbjorn had that look again. Jack couldn’t place it, but it wasn’t right. “I know we’re not the best of friends, Jack, but… you’re a good guy. You can talk to me, if y’need to. What happened in there wasn’t your fault.”

“Isn’t it though?” Jack smiled sadly, going to the door to his room. He leaned into it, resting his forehead against the cold surface. “What’s the point if we don’t even try?”

“Bad things can happen, even when you do everything you can,” Torbjorn said, reaching up and patting Jack’s hip; it was about as high as he could reach. “You need to focus on the lives you saved yesterday. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t here because of you. Try to think on them, okay?” He smiled, though it looked forced. “Do it for me, alright? Not as pretty as Ana and Gabriel, but I can still give good advice.”

Jack looked down at him, trying to rouse himself to smile. He couldn’t even manage to do that without his face twitching. “I’ll do my best. I’ll feel better after I sleep. Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”

Torbjorn sighed, patting Jack’s hip again and shaking his head. “Whatever you say, soldier boy. Just try not to bottle it up. It won’t do you any good.”

Jack watched him, searching the engineer’s face for something. Maybe the reassurance he needed? He wasn’t even sure. “How do you do it? Knowing something you made did… all this. How do you deal with it?”

Torbjorn blinked, crossing his arms and looking pensively at the floor. “Hard question. Lots of ways, I suppose, but the most important one is I try and fix it. I made the mess, I have to clean it up. It’s no one else’s responsibility but mine, and everyone else who worked on them. Without us, you wouldn’t be fighting in this shitty war.” He looked back up, brows furrowed as he met Jack’s eyes. “I remind myself every day that my pride got in the way. I pushed things too far, and they got out of control… and maybe if I had listened to other people, this wouldn’t have happened. But it did, and here I am, so now I have to make it right.”

Jack hadn’t even been sure Torbjorn would answer him, let alone that he would be honest. Sometimes it was hard to remember how much of the design of the Omnics had been Torbjorn’s work. How firmly the weight of the Crisis rested on his shoulders. Despite it, he stayed--cheerful wasn’t the right word, but he got up every morning just like the rest of them, and he kept going.

Jack wished he had that.

“Thanks, Torbjorn. Really.” He nodded slowly, thinking on the words.  _ I remind myself every day that my pride got in the way _ . “I think I just do need some rest. Process things. Once I’ve got my head on straight, you’ll be the first to know.”

Torbjorn nodded, looking a little more enthusiastic. “That’s the spirit. I’ll be around. Sleep well.”

Jack didn’t sleep.

~~

Adawe had waited until Jack and Torbjorn left before she looked to Petras, who may as well have been a statue for all he had moved. “Go on then, say your piece.”

“It wasn't the time,” Petras said, not elaborating.

“He deserved to know what happened to Colonel Erikson. The timing is… admittedly not fantastic. But he deserved to know.” Adawe sighed, taking a seat across from him. “I do wish we’d had a better time, though. All our heavy hitters are down now. Morrison looked like he was about to have a nervous breakdown.”

She couldn't afford that. Jack's enthusiasm and heroic posturing on every news network the UN could reach had brought back a sense of hope to the world. They had been so close to losing everything only two years before, and now they could practically say they were  _ winning _ . She had done it. Overwatch had  _ done _ it.

“We're too close to let things go wrong now,” Petras mumbled, clasping his hands together. “But we will have to pull them. Reyes will be out of commission for at least a month.”

Which was amazing, considering the extent of his injuries. He'd recover before Ana or Reinhardt would, though the doctors had said it wouldn't be easy. The hand was their concern. A normal person would have needed an amputation, but she had forbidden it. Their technology wasn't advanced enough yet. They had to salvage it. He was their Strike Commander, and losing him would have been almost as bad - no, worse - than losing their media face.

_ God, we cannot have another press conference with Jack looking like that. _ A cruel thought, but she needed him at his best. The injuries to his comrades and the dead civilians had obviously taken their toll.

“Reyes out for a month. Reinhardt maybe two with the concussion. Ana maybe three with the rib fractures. And from the way Jack looked…” Adawe massaged her temple. “I'll handle the civilian deaths on the UN side. We'll need to make the announcement. Then if we can pick a target Omnium for five months down the line… A successful extraction with enough showmanship guarantees us co-operation.”

Petras nodded solemnly. “If the UN backs Overwatch completely once the Crisis has ended, then...”

Adawe nodded. “We'll be long past peacekeeping. We can have a joint army between nations. A real chance for a united world.” Nothing could stand in the way of that. Overwatch had been so successful that nations were jumping at the chance to have them, and to expand them. Staying in the shadows too long or letting anyone else overtake their advances was… unacceptable. “Nothing can stop this now.”

Petras nodded, leaning back in his chair thoughtfully. “How much have you considered for ‘after’, Gabriela?”

Adawe turned towards him, arching an eyebrow. She had known Petras a few years. He had the ambition of many young politicians, and a mind that might be able to pull it off. He rarely used anyone's first name, let alone hers. “What do you mean?”

Petras shrugged. “You appointed me the Director of Overwatch. My scope has been growing a great deal in the past year, especially considering our success. I wonder how you picture ‘after’ the Omnics are gone. If we have a united force like Overwatch with members from every nation, how much will change?”

“Cart before the horse, Petras,” Adawe warned. “My wife always tells me to be careful about running into a room before I've had a chance to cut some red tape.”

“A wise woman.” Petras smiled, which Adawe had always seen more as a mask attempting to smile when it wasn't made to function that way. “I meant more for myself. For our little Strike Team. What do you think will happen to us?”

Adawe pursed her lips, considering it. Petras was one of the more skilled bureaucrats she had met in her life. He had the same goals she did. She hadn't planned on recommending anyone else for the Director position. “If you're worried about your job, don't. You're good where you are. I don't see that changing.”

Petras’ thin smile widened a little, though so little she thought for a moment she might have imagined it. “I do appreciate that. And the others?”

Adawe looked out the window, finding herself smiling. “I see much more than a military force, Petras. Imagine a scientific branch, striving for a better world. Every nation reaching its peak in a joint effort. Torbjorn and Liao are only the beginning. Imagine a medical division. Maybe even something like the SEP program from the US, but that would only be to start. Advancing medical techniques to a new level, to save countless lives… If everyone could recover in a mere month from getting impaled, like Reyes can, how many people could we save? We could advance decades beyond where we are now in only a few years if we brought truly great minds together. And then not just one Strike Team, but a virtual army that could be deployed to end a crisis in hours. We can be more than peacekeepers and bureaucrats. We can expand to a real  _ army. _ ”

She shook her head, trying not to romanticize it, as she was fond of doing. “Yes, Torbjorn and Liao could start the technological revolution, but there would be more. The rest of the Strike Team would remain, of course. They're quite the poster children, aren't they?”

Petras nodded. “Indeed. The world trusts them. Though…” he trailed off as though he was still thinking about it, when he clearly already knew what he was going to say next.

“Though?” Adawe asked, crossing her arms.

“I certainly understand why Reyes leads the Strike Team. He has quite a stellar record… from what the US will provide of his mission history anyway,” Petras said, dangling something that he  _ knew _ annoyed her. Reyes had been on so many top secret missions for his home country that she was almost surprised they'd let him leave. “I do wonder long term, though, if the Commander shouldn't be someone with a… cleaner record.”

Adawe paused, looking him up and down. “Cleaner?”

“Amari has a rather lengthy military career, and a more open one, but Egypt hasn't always been… the most enthusiastic member of the UN. Or offered the most funding.” Petras kept his posture straight. “Wilhelm is had a stellar combat record, but he is a tad… hm, volatile. But everyone does know who Morrison is. He has rather become the face of Overwatch, has he not?”

And, Adawe had no doubt, would be the easiest to control, and trot out to say whatever Petras needed. Whatever  _ she _ needed. She didn't much like thinking about Jack in that light. He was an asset, not just because he was good on camera, but because he was a true believer. An idealist. Someone who would want all the things she wanted; a better world. Someone without the baggage Reyes brought.

“Worth considering,” Adawe said, because it was, and she wasn't going to give much else away.

Petras was good, but he was also a politician, same as her. They could only be trusted so far.

“That is all I ask.” Petras nodded, picking up his tablet. “Now, how shall we draft the information about the friendly fire incident with the civilians?”

Adawe took out her own tablet, ready to begin.

She had a lot to ponder.

~~

In the end Jack wound up showering, then flipping through various news channels instead of sleeping. He realized it was either that or staring at the ceiling. Every channel had at least a short clip of him, giving the grand speech – though everyone was sure to comment on how tired he looked, which was less flattering – and they all praised Overwatch’s bold effort to stop the Omnium. Eventually they added on some talks about Adawe and Petras after they held their own news conference, but there was no direct mention of the people who had died.

Some interviews with the people Ana and Reinhardt had rescued, some with the people who had been evacuated and never even seen a Omnic, but nothing about the death toll. Just praise that unlike Dubai, here Overwatch showed the full extent of their creativity and finesse, a heroic group that… that…

He kept changing channels. He only stopped when he came to a telenovela; last thing he expected to see, but he was well into the five thousand section of whatever satellite service the hotel was using. He recognized it right away. It was of Gabriel’s favorites - they had watched it back in SEP when all they’d had were reruns. It was season six, he knew that right away. When Hector and Estelle, the leads, finally confessed their love for each other. Gabriel always cried on the last episode, though he used to joke that he would kill Jack if he ever told anyone about that.

Hopeless romantic, Jack used to think.  _ Why was I so afraid to tell him how I felt _ ?

Or maybe Gabriel had just known and decided not to press the issue. Jack hadn’t been subtle. On Gabriel’s last birthday Jack had recreated the last scene of season six from the show, with scattered rose petals over Gabriel’s bed and gently wavering candles. He had worn a collar and nothing else, which had been more his own addition than a copy from the show. As a joke he’d written ‘if lost return to Gabriel Reyes’ on the tag, and he’d done it up just a little too tight.

He’d applied lube liberally that night while he waited and made the mistake of doing it  _ after _ he’d put on the collar. By the time Gabriel had arrived, Jack had still been very involved in… himself.

He could remember Gabriel chuckling, catching Jack’s attention from where he’d been hyper focused on stroking his own prostate, his hips flexing on the bed. He was so hard by then that his cock was red, throbbing under the cock ring he’d put there.

“Well, goddamn, Jack,” Gabriel whistled, appraising him and licking his lips. “Should you be singing me happy birthday?”

Jack had glanced at the clock, breathing hard and blinking his eyes blearily at the clock. “I…  _ fuck _ ,you’re back early… t-thought I’d have some…”

Gabriel leaned in, kissing him and pinning him to the bed. Jack hadn’t been able to catch his breath, too caught up in Gabriel’s mouth on his, the sweet taste of his lips, his tongue pressing past his teeth, choking him just for a moment so that Jack knew who he belonged to. Belonged  _ with _ . He shuddered when Gabriel bit his lip and sucked on it. When Gabriel tried to slip a finger under the collar and could barely manage it.

“You sure this isn’t too tight, Jackie?” He’d smiled, pulling away. “Don’t want you pass out right in the middle of my present.”

Jack shook his head, panting, his bare chest pressed against Gabriel’s clothed one. “Won’t, promise. Trust me.”

Gabriel snorted, reaching down and tugging off his shirt, pulling away from Jack just long enough to get it off and toss it aside. “You know I trust you.”

_ Liar _ . Jack knew now.

He’d pushed Jack back on the bed, lifted his legs onto his shoulders. Not Jack’s favorite position, but he’d done it for Gabriel’s birthday, since that was what he wanted. Besides, he hadn’t  _ hated _ it. He never hated sex with Gabriel. Even what he didn’t love was still worthwhile.

And sometimes it was even hotter like this, when it was Gabriel taking charge, deciding how they’d fuck with Jack just along for the ride. It didn’t matter what the specific position was, really - what mattered was that it was Gabriel’s choice, Gabriel looking down at him with need in his eyes, Gabriel’s hands against his skin. Positioning was a distant concern.

Gabriel had licked his fingers, pressed them against Jack’s entrance - and then snorted, shaking his head. “Damn, you really wanted to give me a break tonight, huh?”

“No muss, no fuss.” Jack grinned up at him. “Just messy sheets tomorrow.” He then gasped when Gabriel pushed in two fingers instead of one, closing his eyes and sinking back into his pillow. “Gabe… fuck…” He could feel Gabriel’s cock against the back of his thigh, even through the thick fabric of the other man’s pants.

Gabriel smiled at him, pressing a little further before he paused. “Can I have one more present?”

Jack groaned, trying to press a little further down on his fingers. “Seriously? This not good enough? Or do you want your dick sucked too?” He’d winked - or made an attempt to, at least, because Gabriel had slipped in another finger before he could manage it. He’d gasped instead.

“Can I take your picture?” Gabriel asked, smiling and working his fingers slowly, stretching them open to feel Jack’s walls and make room for himself. “Doesn’t have to be your face too, if that worries you… but this is something I want to remember.”

That had made Jack hesitate. Just long enough for Gabriel to get a look that always made Jack think he was sure Jack was about to use the safe word on him.

“Sorry, never mind. Don’t worry about it.” Gabriel had smiled, but Jack could sense that twinge of disappointment, even if Gabriel wanted to hide it. “I have a good enough memory to-”

“Nah, you can do i,.” Jack said, reaching up and holding the back of Gabriel’s neck, making him look at him. “Under the condition that I never, ever, have to see it.” He didn’t want to mention that the last time someone had taken his photo with Gabriel in an intimate moment, it had almost ruined both their lives.

Gabriel knew. That was why he had worried Jack would say no.

“Just for you. No one else ever gets to see me like this.”

They’d taken more than one that evening. Jack with his legs spread and cock hard, laying on Gabriel’s sheets. Jack with Gabriel’s hand on his erection, cupping his balls, thumbing his slit. Close ups of his chest and nipples, where Gabriel had twisted them until they were hard and bruised. Jack wasn’t sure, but Gabriel may have even taken a close up of his lips, though he couldn’t imagine why.

Something about the photos had made things more intense for Jack, though they’d never done it since then. He’d been on display, exposed and vulnerable. Trapped, with Gabriel, forever. It had clearly done something for Gabriel too, because when he’d finally declared they were done, he had practically pulled Jack off the bed to press inside him. It had been fast and hard, Gabriel using the lube Jack had applied to push past any resistance he could have offered.

Jack didn’t want to resist. He’d still cried out, because it fucking  _ hurt _ when Gabriel went that fast – he wasn’t a small man – but he hadn’t said stop. He never  _ wanted _ to stop. He wanted to feel it when he woke up the next morning. He wanted to know how badly Gabriel wanted him.

Not just the fucking, but the teeth Gabriel sank into his neck. The way Gabriel smelled his hair, licked his chest, bruised his thighs when he held him steady and rocked into him until Jack was ready to scream. The usual ease in was gone, that night. Instead it was unbridled passion, torn sheets when Gabriel plowed into Jack’s prostate, and Jack just about punched him when he tried to grab Gabriel’s hair.

His fingers had curled, his muscles had cramped, and he’d had Gabriel’s full attention on him. He couldn’t remember his hole feeling so stretched, or his ass fitted so tightly on Gabriel’s thick thighs as they held him in place.

It hadn’t been enough to stop them from falling off the bed, and  _ that _ hadn’t been enough to make them stop. When Jack tried to move to his hands and knees, Gabriel had grabbed his ankle, dragging him across the carpet. He’d lifted Jack’s leg over his shoulder, repositioned himself, and kept going. Jack wasn’t sure what he sounded like by then, but he knew he’d more or less screamed like a cat in heat, the angle even better than the one Gabriel had on the bed.

“P-please… Gabe… the cock ring… take it off, take it off, I need to cum, please  _ fuck- _ !”

Gabriel hadn’t, not for the first few strokes. Not until he was sure they were going to come together; and when they did Jack felt dizzy because he had forgotten to breathe (and the collar was  _ probably _ too tight).

Gabriel had lightly slapping his face, panting and sweaty, leaning over him and smiling. “You fucker. Told you the collar was too tight.”

_ I should have told him I loved him then _ . Jack thought, covering his eyes and letting out a small sob. Would it have made any difference? Would Gabriel have trusted him and done something differently if Jack had told him how much he meant a long time ago?

He turned off the TV and wiped his eyes, grabbing his coat and heading to the hospital. What did any of it matter, if Gabriel didn’t think Jack had his back?  _ Or if he doesn’t have mine _ .

He should have asked to go to Gabriel’s room, but instead he had wandered the halls until he found it. Gabriel looked awful. His skin was sallow, he was covered in wires and bandages on his legs. His hand. His  _ hand. _

Jack sat down, hugging his knees to his chest and watching him. Gabriel mumbled in his sleep, but he was strapped down to keep him from moving. He knew Gabriel was going to be okay. Petras and Adawe had said he would be okay. No matter how angry at him Jack was, Jack  _ wanted _ him to be okay. He loved him. He could feel the pit in his stomach and the ache in his heart at the thought of what he knew he needed to let go of.

Ana was right. Torbjorn was right. He had convinced himself he could make it work, but it couldn’t. All the love in the world couldn’t undo what had happened between him and Gabriel. Gabriel had decided that Jack couldn’t be trusted, to the point where he was better off as dead weight than getting in the way.

Jack couldn’t stay. Not with Gabriel. And Gabriel  _ was _ Overwatch, and that meant…

“I’m sorry, Ana,” Jack mumbled, putting his head in his hands. What would he do? Go back to the US? They would find a place for him. He could ask at Erikson’s funeral - General Kaplan would probably be there. He could see Maggie again. Maybe go home and see his parents.

_ Dear mom and dad… I’m coming home _ .

Gabriel groaned, mumbling to himself, his eyes fluttering open and then closed again. “How long have I been here?” he said, his voice cracking as he spoke.

Jack looked up at the clock. It was well past midnight, and he hadn’t slept. It was going to be forty-eight hours soon. He got up and moved to the end of the bed, sitting down. Maybe once it was done he could sleep. “Two days.” He looked out towards the window. The sun would be coming up soon.

“You look like shit,” Gabriel said, making a sound that might have been a laugh.

Jack couldn’t do it. He couldn’t make light of it. He couldn’t make it okay again. He wanted to scream. To beg. To know  _ why _ . But “why” wasn’t going to bring anyone back to life. “Why” wasn’t going to get the images out of his head, or make it hurt any less.

“That bad, huh?” Gabriel said, his voice more tentative. Like he could feel it.

Why couldn’t Gabriel tell how serious this was? How angry he was? How he’d fucked it all up? How far past  _ kidding _ it was?

He wanted to strangle him. “That’s how it’s going to be, is it?” He wanted this over. He wanted to go  _ home _ . But Gabriel was home. He had been for almost three years.

Gabriel seemed to get it then, struggling to sit up, though the straps kept him down. Jack could feel Gabriel struggling to find a way to explain. “Jack, you… you panicked. I couldn’t-”

Jack didn’t let him finish. “You killed all those people, and I spent today  _ lying _ about it for you.” He’d lied to Torbjorn, Petras, Adawe, all of them. Made it seem like there hadn’t been a choice that they’d made. That  _ Gabriel _ had made.

“I didn’t ask you to do that for me,” Gabriel bit out, and Jack felt it settle in his heart then.

Over. It was over.

He got up and headed to the door, his fingers clenching so tightly into his palms that he could feel himself starting to bleed.

“Jack-” Gabriel said, sounding close to panic. Realizing how badly he’d fucked up.

“Don’t,” Jack growled, so close to punching the wall that he couldn’t believe it. He saw red, just like with Nathan. He wanted to kill him. Gabriel had taken something from him, not just proved that he didn’t trust him, he had  _ taken _ those people out of the world, when they could have survived.

He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to deal with it. He had been sad at the idea of losing Gabriel. At the idea of never feeling his touch. At feeling so  _ safe _ . But how could he feel safe now?

“When you’re back on your feet, and all of this is cleaned up… I’m out,” Jack said, trying to pull out that anger. He didn’t want to hate Gabriel. But he did. “You do what you want with Overwatch, but I’m done.  _ We’re _ done.”

He didn’t wait to hear the answer. He couldn’t. Because if he looked away from being furious with Gabriel, he had to think about how he was losing the person who meant more to him than anyone else.

That was too much.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me through that lengthy dissociative episode!
> 
> Questions? Concerns? Just want to yell? Find me on Tumblr at http://youredgedadsareshowing.tumblr.com/ or on twitter @TheJudgeCoffee
> 
> As always, special thank you to my wonderful beta Aisu. They're sick, so send them good thoughts!


	7. Before the Funeral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look, I'm a week early! Mainly because I know the holiday madness will hit next month, and I want to get a jump.
> 
> This chapter is mainly related to conversations and emotions. Also I've discovered I love Torbjorn, and y'all are going to have to fight me if you hate on him.

 

Gabriel could not have cared less about Colonel Philip Erikson being dead. He hadn’t liked the man when he was alive, he had barely thought about him since he’d left, and as far as he was concerned the military would be better off without him. He’d botched SEP with nepotism, and without Dr. Okoye there they would have faced unmitigated disaster.

More than that, as far as Gabriel was concerned, if someone else – anyone else – had been in charge of SEP, Abigail Goldman would still be alive.

Still, when Adawe brought up that Erikson was dead, he agreed to go. Not because he cared, only because when he had asked “Is Jack going?”, Adawe had said “Yes.”

He glanced down at his hand, wrapped in gauze. He wanted to clench his fingers. Make a fist. Remind himself that he was anything other than a pathetic piece of shit laying in a bed, who would likely need a wheelchair to move. He couldn’t even stop Jack from walking out of the room.

The doctors hadn’t been clear on his recovery in that area. They could confirm the impalement likely wouldn’t leave lasting damage – no major organs harmed, and his body stitched itself together so quickly that the doctors said they had watched some of him fixing itself while he was in surgery. His legs would have some nasty scars, but they had taken the grafts well. He didn’t mind. He already had plenty of scars.

It was the hand they worried about.

“You have to understand, your hand healed very quickly, but because of the nature of the injury, you have bone fragments in your tendons and serious damage to your ligaments. It will require multiple surgeries to correct the damage and-” The doctor had gone on at length. Shown Gabriel charts he didn’t understand and told him things that Gabriel had only a tenuous grasp on.

He did get the gist though.

“What you’re saying is my hand might be done.” Gabriel had scowled, looking down at the cast. “That I’m not going to be able to use it.”

Never play guitar again. Never load a gun again. If he couldn’t even pull a trigger, what use was he?

“No, Commander Reyes. At the very least we can guarantee that… some use will come back. Finer motor skills may be compromised, however, and we recommend that you-” After that portion it started to fade out, and Gabriel wasn’t sure exactly what the doctor had said. They’d given a list of ‘further recommendations’, and Gabriel had given the list to Adawe.

She could give it to Petras, or whoever she wanted, he didn’t really care. He didn’t want to think about it.

“Gabriel.” Adawe was still talking, though Gabriel hadn’t been listening. “Please tell me you’ve been paying attention.”

“I haven’t.” Gabriel shrugged, wincing as it pulled at his skin. He hated that. “I was just picturing how I’ll look at the funeral. Cast on my hand. Maybe in a wheelchair. Like a fucking invalid.”

“The doctors said you won’t be in a wheelchair. You should be able to use a walker by then,” Adawe said.

Gabriel barked a laugh, and he shouldn’t have, because he could feel every stitch in his side tug when he did. “A walker? Guess I’m getting some first-hand experience of what my life will be like as an old man.” At this rate he wouldn’t live that long.

He’d never really thought he would live that long.

“…I was going to suggest a cane, seeing as a walker would likely aggravate your wrist.” Adawe sighed, crossing her arms. “Gabriel, they wanted to amputate the hand. Would you rather have had that? Because if so, perhaps it’s about time you assigned yourself an actual medical proxy.”

_ Jack _ . His first thought, of course, because who else did he trust to make the right choice? The optimistic choice. Ana or Adawe had always made the most sense to him. Adawe would always pick whatever was best for Overwatch, Ana would probably take a practical approach. “No, Gabriella, you’re fine. It’s not like I have any family you could call.” No one he would want getting involved, anyway.

Adawe nodded slowly, sighing. “Right… I didn’t mean to dig into anything you didn’t want to talk about. I’m sorry, this has all been… difficult.”

“Yeah, I saw on the news. You and Petras are going to have some questions to answer about the whole ‘people have been alive inside the Omniums we’ve been blowing sky high.’ Glad it’s not my job,” Gabriel said, thinking back to Jack. It was good that it hadn’t been Jack. He had enough on his mind.

“They died on your watch too, Gabriel,” Adawe said, crossing her arms. “How fucking long have they been pulling this under our noses? Every time we think we have some leverage on the Omnics, they pull a fast one on us.”

“That’s what they’re designed for, isn’t it?” Gabriel said, holding his hand up over his head, glaring at it. At what they had done to him. “Being better than us in every way. Our only advantage is that we’re unpredictable.” And that he wouldn’t fucking relent as long as he was alive.

Not against the Omnics. And he wasn’t losing Jack over it either.  _ Not like this. I’m going to fix it _ .

“Good fucking luck with that one, Chief,” Abbey said from the window, “But then, you’re making a plan, aren’t you? You’re good at plans. But you’re better at snap decisions. Making the call no one else will. I know this, because you know this.”

There was a knock on the door, and Torbjorn stuck his head inside. “Ah, my two favorite names that start with G-A-B - but I’m only looking for one of you.” He wandered in, heading for the edge of Gabriel’s bed. “Mind if we have the room, Gabriella? I just need to have a chat with the Commander.”

Adawe glanced at Gabriel, then shrugged. “Of course. We’re done here anyway. I’ll send you your comm with the funeral details. I’m arranging transport. Overwatch is benched for now with so many injuries anyway…” She sighed, walking past Torbjorn, glancing at him curiously. “...Except for you and Liao. I do need that Omnium analysis sooner rather than later so we can begin formulating our next steps.”

Torbjorn grumbled under his breath, shooing her out the door. “Yes, yes, it’ll be done when it’s done, we’re still in our primary analysis, don’t worry about it…” He closed the door on her, watching the window to make sure she was gone.

Gabriel raised an eyebrow, watching Torbjorn unflinchingly watch the door. “Nice to know you and the team have been so eager to visit me. Are Reinhardt and Ana ever going to bring me flowers?”

“Reinhardt is on bedrest, Ana called in. Jack is…” Torbjorn trailed off, but he had a look that Gabriel recognized and didn’t like. “I’m going to show you something, and I’m going to need you to be honest with me, alright?”

Gabriel nodded slowly. He had expected a little more fanfare, or at least a question about how he was doing. Obviously it wasn’t going to be that kind of day. “Yes, good to see you’re up and talking Commander Reyes, saw you nearly lost your hand and were impaled, was a little worried about you, can’t imagine-”

Torbjorn ignored him, taking out a tablet and setting it on the bed in front of Gabriel, though he barely made it over the side. “I had a rough layout of the Omnium from our current surveillance on it, and Jack drew me up a map of what it looked like on the inside, which more or less matched.” He flicked his finger across the screen, pulling up a diagram that showed their initial analysis and where they’d set their charges. Then he brought up a new version, cleaner and more precise, with an additional line drawn.

Gabriel didn’t recognize what it was at first, but he slowly realized it was the route they’d taken to the prisoners the Omnics had taken.

“Now, according to Jack, this is the route you boys took to find the hostages. And they were located here,” Torbjorn said, bringing up the room.

Gabriel nodded, eying Torbjorn as he did. “Yeah, that looks about right.”

Torbjorn nodded stiffly, his face getting red and a vein in his forehead starting to bulge in a way that Gabriel could only imagine was painful. “Aye. So, here’s my problem with that, Commander. According to Jack, the situation was that the civilians were located directly under the charges that blew the Omnium’s turrets. And this…” he tapped the map, “is nowhere close to that.”

_ Fuck _ .

Gabriel’s mind stuttered. “Sorry. My memory of the whole thing is a bit fuzzy, what with the being impaled and-”

“Don’t  _ bullshit _ me, Gabriel!” Torbjorn snapped, grabbing his tablet off the table, and looking ready to slap Gabriel over the head with it. “I think we both know that Jack would do anything you asked him to do, Golden Boy of Overwatch or no. Christ, he’d probably suck your cock if you wanted, lying to Adawe and Petras would barely-”

“Torbjorn. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” Gabriel glared. Couldn’t help himself. Not great, he was usually better at controlling a situation, but everything hurt, he’d been dumped, and his hand would probably never be the same. He’d had a bad couple of days.

Torbjorn’s eyes widened a little as he looked at Gabriel. “So, guess he already is, then. Fucking hell, Gabriel, what did you do?”

“What I  _ had _ to,” Gabriel growled, dragging himself up in the bed, feeling the stitches in his side straining as he did. “There was a call that had to be made. The people inside that Omnium, or  _ everyone _ in this city. If I had called it in, with the operation so close to being done, it would have been called off, and we’d be here in the aftermath of a Titan being dropped directly on these people. And you can act morally outraged if that’s what you want, since that’s the game Jack’s playing right now, but I could guarantee saving  _ one _ group, not both. So, I made a call, and-”

“And Jack knew you could go to prison, or be dishonorably discharged if anyone found out about it. That wasn’t your call to  _ make _ and you know it,” Torbjorn said, his voice almost rising to a yell. Almost. “And now Jack has lied for you, so he’s in the same boat, god  _ damn _ you, Gabriel!” He turned and kicked the wall. “Christ, what am I supposed to do with this!?”

“I didn’t ask Jack to lie for me, I knew what I was doing when I did it-” Gabriel snapped, but Torbjorn wasn’t about to let him finish.

“Maybe you didn’t, but you fucking  _ knew _ he would, because he would do any damn thing you asked him to!” Torbjorn said, voice getting to the point where Gabriel worried someone outside the room would hear him. He seemed to catch himself, stepping back and running his hands through his hair, taking a long deep breath. “And now it’s not  _ just _ your ass on the line, it’s his, and mine too.”

_ Mine too _ . Which meant Torbjorn wasn’t planning on telling Adawe. “It was the right call, Torbjorn. It was a  _ shitty _ call that no one wanted to make, and that everyone would fucking hate me for, but it was the  _ right _ call and you know it.”

“Right for you, maybe.” Torbjorn muttered, “How right was it for all the people you left to die?”

Gabriel clenched his fist. It was the only way he could stand his ground. “Don’t act like I don’t know, Torbjorn.”

“Do you?” Torbjorn asked, scowling. “Could you have made the call if you did?”

Gabriel looked towards the window, pointing. “I made the call for  _ those _ people. And if you, and Jack, and  _ everyone else _ can’t get that through your-!”

“Keep  _ fucking _ telling yourself that, then!” Torbjorn snapped back, getting right beside Gabriel and making a point of getting in his face. “Tell yourself how many people you saved the next time you think about how many people are dead because you decided they weren’t worth it. Because I bet that’s what Jack will be thinking about for the rest of his life.”

He snatched his tablet off the table and went to the door, growling under his breath. “It’s what I think about every damn day. What do you think about, Gabriel?” He slammed the door behind him.

Gabriel lay back on the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling.

“It’s a fair question, Gabriel,” Abbey said, leaning over him, looking him dead in the eye. She was covered in blood. She traced her fingers over his side where the stitches from his impalement had split open. He could see blood seeping out of him, and he didn’t even know if it was real or not.

_ Jack _ .

~~

The conversation with Adawe had not gone very well. Jack knew he probably could have looked better, or maybe come across as more professional, but he couldn’t bear to look at himself in the mirror, let alone spend time on his appearance.

“Jack, there are a myriad of reasons why you cannot leave Overwatch, not the least of which is a contract you signed stating as much, and the permissions we have from the United States Government to keep you here,” Adawe had started, after Jack had finally managed to gather the courage to tell her he wanted out. “I understand that what you went through at the Omnium was… It was  _ difficult _ . Things have gone poorly for all of us, these last two missions. Dubai, and now knowing the Omnics were taking hostages…?” She leaned forward, hands on the desk. “But this was not your fault. And in time, I believe you’ll see that.”

“So, I can’t leave, then?”

“No. You will have some time to sort yourself out, and whatever you need. But we need  _ you _ . The world needs you. And in the end, right now, when we’re finally starting to rally… that is all that matters.”

He lay back on one of the chairs in the embassy’s waiting room, staring at the ceiling. He’d hated the look Adawe had given him. Same as Torbjorn’s. Pity.

“Sadsack Jack… funny,” Jack mumbled to himself.

“Talking to yourself, Jack?” He tilted his head back over the seat’s arm, catching Ana upside down, watching him from the doorway. “Probably not a good habit to get into.”

Jack let out a long breath, smiling and turning over. He still felt like shit, but at least Ana was… Ana. A friendly face. And someone who knew about Gabriel, which meant she was someone he could actually tell… some of what had happened.  _ Not everything _ . “Hey, where’ve you been?”

“You must allow women to have their secrets,” Ana said, making her way over and sitting on the coffee table. “But if you must know, I asked Sam to show me around. I’ve never been to Canada before, and I quite like the mountains and the ocean when I’m not trapped in a snowstorm.” She reached out, taking his hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. “How are you holding up?”

“I…” Jack trailed off, looking down at her hand. Which made him think about Gabriel’s hand. “Not great. And that might be underselling the level of ‘not great’. I dumped Gabriel.”

He hadn’t meant to say it like that. Maybe give some lead in. Usually Jack was the one who got dumped, not the other way around. How did other people do it? Explain why they couldn’t make it work? Explain how hard it was to let go of someone you loved? He couldn’t stop being angry at Gabriel, but if he thought about Gabriel too long… if Jack thought about having an extended conversation with him, or about what he would do when they got back to Headquarters, he worried he’d slip back into remembering everything he loved about Gabriel.

Jack just wanted to believe in him again.

Ana didn’t say anything, just squeezed his hand, looking at him with… not pity. Mercy, maybe?

“I’m so sorry, Jack. What happened?”

How many versions of the story had he told now? How many different lies?

“I… kind of wish I could say it was because I took your advice.” Jack smiled miserably. “I wanted to save the civilians. There was… we wouldn’t have been able to. Probably. Maybe? I don’t know. The rational part of my brain says I could have done… something. Even if it meant dying-”

“And he stopped you,” Ana said softly, shaking her head. “Jack… I understand being mad at him, but if there’s no chance you could have saved them-”

In the official version. He’d made sure in the official version there would be no chance.

“I didn’t say  _ no _ chance, Ana. Christ, you sound just like him.” Jack pulled away, staring out the window. “There is  _ always _ a chance. There has to be one. Or else, why are we even here, fighting this fight?”

“Jack, you can’t throw your life away either,” Ana said, still only seeing half the story, Jack knew. Or maybe he was the one who was only seeing half the story? Was his judgement too clouded? “Just because I don’t think you and Gabriel are the best idea doesn’t mean he isn’t right sometimes. I know you did everything you could-”

“He used a sleep dart on me,” Jack said, not looking at her. He couldn’t. “He didn’t even try to talk to me. He just… he just did it. He decided me being unconscious was less of a liability than me being awake. His decision. Not mine. And now…” He laughed, closing his eyes and putting his head down. “Adawe won’t let me leave. And Gabriel nearly died because he couldn’t trust me. Even if I couldn’t have saved them, maybe I could have saved him.”

Ana looked down, sighing and shaking her head. “Jack… I’m sorry you’re going through this. And I’m sorry that he didn’t trust you. You are right about that, if he’d had you, maybe he wouldn’t be in the place he is right now. But… if Adawe won’t let you leave, then just…” She sighed, rubbing her forehead. “Would you have stopped, if he asked you to? Would you have been able to turn around and walk away, even if there was no chance of saving those people, or would you have died for them? Right there and then.”

Jack looked back at her, finally meeting her eyes. “Would you have? Could you have left anyone behind?”

Ana sighed, shaking her head and shrugging. “Every life matters, Jack. Every life  _ has _ to matter. But that includes yours. Fight, but don’t throw yourself away for something you can’t win.”

Jack tried not to think about them again. Strung up. What the God program had said.

“ _ I will lose nothing. Lay down your weapons, or these people’s blood will be on your hands _ .”

“ _ Guess I’ll just have to live with that _ .”

“How am I supposed to sleep at night and believe that’s true? That I mattered more than everyone who was there?” Jack said, putting his head in his hands and curling his fingers in his hair until he could feel his scalp twist. “That they weren’t  _ worth _ the effort?”

“Jack, you listen to me,” Ana said, taking his face firmly in her hand, forcing him to look at her. “If you throw your life away for nothing, and save no one, then the world has not only lost an innocent person, it has lost someone who  _ protects _ the innocent. You  _ cannot _ die for nothing. I forbid it.” She smiled, a little more softly. “And not just because I’d miss your handsome face. We need people like you, Jack. The people we did save… this city and everyone who’s still alive now? They’re alive because of what we did.” She squeezed his chin, holding him in place, but still looking at him fondly. “Maybe that doesn’t feel like enough right now… but maybe you need to see more of the good you’ve done and less of the bad. It could help you. It helped me.”

Jack forced himself to smile back, weakly. Even if she didn’t know everything, she was right. It was hard to wrap his head around, but she was right.

“I… yeah. It might help. Just to get out there,” he said, nodding, not fighting to make her let go of his face. “Can you do me a favor though?”

“Sure, whatever you need,” Ana said, letting him go. “Though in return I’ll ask you to  _ actually _ sleep before you do anything else.”

Jack snorted, rubbing his eyes. “Yeah, that’s fair. I just haven’t been… but yeah, I’ll sleep. I’ll try. I promise. But, can you check on Gabe for me?” He wished he could stop thinking about him. About his hand. That if Gabriel had let him help, it wouldn’t have happened.

No matter how angry he was, he couldn’t help but worry.

“You know I will.” Ana nodded, standing and pointing in the direction of Jack’s room. “Get some rest… and maybe just think about talking to him, alright? Once you’ve both had some time to think.”

Jack nodded, wishing he could explain why he doubted that would help.

He just needed to rest, and think.

~~~

To get to the funeral, Gabriel and Jack had to take a two hour plane ride together on a private jet where they were more or less alone. Gabriel was  _ supposed _ to have a nurse with him, but after half a week in the hospital he had already recovered almost entirely from his injuries.

Almost.

His doctors had insisted he use the wheelchair for the majority of his trip, despite his protests, because he’d torn his stitches when he’d fought with Torbjorn. The entirety of the hospital staff seemed to believe he had done it attempting to leave, and perhaps he could have corrected them and said he’d just gotten in a fight with his colleague… but he didn’t. It was easier if they believed he was just an idiot, and not openly hostile.

They’d still let Ana and Reinhardt visit, though Jack and Torbjorn hadn’t come back.

Reinhardt’s visit was simple, pleasant even. He’d fretted, in his gentle-giant way that Gabriel had thought was put on for almost a year until he finally accepted that was just how Reinhardt was. Reinhardt made him laugh until the nurses had to drag the man out, because Gabriel very nearly split his stitches again. It had been nice to feel something that wasn’t completely  _ miserable _ .

His conversation with Ana had been a little more revealing, though more morose.

“Jack told me he was leaving you,” she’d started, which had been a rather ominous portent of the rest of their conversation.

“Yeah, and Overwatch. Adawe won’t stand for the second half of that, and if you’re asking, I’m working out how to turn things around. So sorry, but your birthday is not coming early this year.” He’d been a little snide, unable to stop his lip from curling. “I’m not letting him go just because-”

“Because he doesn’t trust you?” Ana had raised an eyebrow at him. Always a strange gesture, because it tended to make her tattoo move in an interesting way. It seemed almost alive. “Gabriel, what were you thinking?”

Gabriel did his best to gauge what Ana might know, but her face was almost unreadable. Damned sharp, she always had been. How much had Jack told her? Probably not as much as he’d inadvertently told Torbjorn.

“I was thinking between the option of Jack not listening and getting himself killed, or the other option of-” Gabriel stopped when Ana threw her hat directly into his face. “Hey, come  _ on _ , you know I’m right on that. He would have gotten himself killed, and gotten my ass killed following after him-!”

“And whose fault is that but the man who should be his boss but was acting like a worried boyfriend?  _ Exactly _ what I warned you about.” Ana scowled. Gabriel took some comfort in that, meaning it was unlikely Jack had mentioned anything about how much choice Gabriel had in the situation.

“How much choice did you have?” Abbey asked, sitting on the edge of the bed and putting on Ana’s hat. “Give in to the God Program, as though it would have spared any of those people? Come on, Gabriel. Don’t doubt yourself now. You never do.”

And yet.

“What, do you want me to change what makes Jack, Jack? Fuck off, Ana. Even if I weren’t in love with the idiot, I wouldn’t want to change him. Jesus, I just don’t want him to die for  _ nothing _ !” Gabriel snapped. “We couldn’t have saved those people! No matter how much we fantasize about it, we’d have been throwing our lives away, and I don’t have that level of deathwish! Stop trying to moralize at me, Abbey, I’m not in the mood-”

He felt the words catch in his throat. He could see her, standing behind Ana, but she wasn’t there. She never would be again. He had sent her to die, and he should have been there. But he couldn’t turn back time. He couldn’t save her.

He could save Jack.

Ana stepped forward, taking her hat off the bed, in the place it had fallen when she’d thrown it. Not from the hands of Abbey, who would never touch anything again, except the desert in the ruins of Tucson.

“Jack isn’t the only one who needs to get his shit together. We all do. We all have our demons, and we all have things in our past we’d rather not face,” Ana said, pity in her eyes that Gabriel didn’t want. “If you really love Jack, and I think you do… the exact same way he loves you, then you have to figure this out. A way where he doesn’t charge in and get himself hurt, and where you let yourself trust him. And if you’re going to insist on being with him, with all the feelings tangled up in that… just take the steps you have to. Or we’re all fucked.”

He hated that Ana was right.

He rolled their conversation through his head over and over again on the way to the airport. He had hoped, maybe, Jack would have come to the hospital to get him, but apparently he’d gotten a taxi in lieu of sharing any space with Gabriel. Not promising, and it only gave Gabriel more time to worry about how he would even begin to start their conversation.

“Strike Commander Reyes!” someone called for him the instant his nurse escorted him out of the van they’d gotten for him to accommodate the wheelchair.

He didn’t recognize the voice, but he knew the woman by the face attached to it. Justine Shaw, a war reporter who had covered Overwatch at length, as well as the early days of the Crisis. He’d never interviewed with her, but he knew Jack and Adawe had.

She came up right away, pad of paper and pen in her hands, press pass swinging from around her neck. “Justine Shaw, The-”

“I know who you are, Ms. Shaw. Sorry to brush you off - I have a plane to catch.” Gabriel smiled bitterly. “Though I’ll be jumping the line. I have a funeral to get to.”

“For Colonel Philip Erikson, yes, I know.” Justine smiled thinly. “I was here to cover the aftermath of the Omnium in the mountains, but I have some sources on how the Colonel died. I wanted to know if you had any comment?”

“What, that the man killed himself?” Gabriel raised an eyebrow. More tact would have been better, but Gabriel had more important things on his mind. “It’s unfortunate, Ms. Shaw, but it happens. I’m sure the last thing his family wants on the subject is  _ my _ opinion, I haven’t seen the man in two years.”

Justine shook her head. “No, Commander. The  _ way _ he killed himself. It bears a striking resemblance to the death of one of your fellow SEP members. One who I was suppose to interview before he died. I wonder if you knew him? Thomas Bowman.”

The name didn’t ring any bells.

“I won’t ask how you’d know who was involved in a top-secret program, but I assume you also know there were almost a hundred of us in that program. I don’t exactly have a yearbook.” Gabriel raised an eyebrow, waving for his nurse to walk away. Just for a moment. “You just looking for comment from one of the only public members of the team, or what?”

“Thomas Bowman’s case was unique,” Justine insisted, grabbing her phone and pulling up an article – that she had written, and holding it in front of his face. “He didn’t exactly die in a way most people would forget.”

Gabriel had forgotten the boy’s name, but he did remember how he died. The article’s title was enough to make him remember that.  “Suicide of Young Soldier Causes Military Controversy”. The first of many bad press pieces that had brought down SEP – and not exactly without reason.

The article, Gabriel knew without reading it, would talk about a young man who had isolated himself after being kicked out of SEP. How he had cut himself off from friends and family, in a small cabin in the woods. How he’d bought geese and set them up as a cheap substitute for guard dogs. About how he’d gone insane and shot himself in the head, but not before he’d slaughtered the geese with a butcher’s knife and left them scattered around the perimeter. A disturbing scene left by a clearly troubled mind.

Gabriel knew this, because he and Abbey had set the whole thing up. Colonel Erikson and Dr. Okoye had told him that Thomas Bowman was going to talk to the press, and they needed him out of the way.

“Right. Tragic. And this has… what to do with Colonel Erikson?” Gabriel asked, genuinely curious. It wasn’t an easy line of dots to follow, unless one had access to  _ extremely _ classified military intelligence.

“Colonel Erikson was found in a cabin in the woods, not far away from where Thomas Bowman was found, with a shotgun in his mouth, and five decapitated geese laying at his feet. Less geese than the Thomas Bowman suicide, but enough to draw a pretty obvious comparison, don’t you think?” Justine asked, raising an eyebrow. “Any comment on why Colonel Philip Erikson would kill himself the same way Thomas Bowman did almost three years ago?”

Gabriel frowned, raising his good hand and stroking down where his beard had started to fill in. “Nothing on the record. Off the record, though? That does seem a little too close to be a coincidence, Ms. Shaw. Now if you’ll excuse me, my flight?”

Justine nodded, stepping back for him. “Of course. Thank you for your time, Commander Reyes. I’ll be attending the funeral, but if you think of anything…” She handed him his card. “Or if you want a nice fluff piece on the fabled reclusive commander of Overwatch, please do give me a call.”

Gabriel nodded, raising the card briefly to her and slipping it into his front pocket. “Will do, Ms. Shaw… and thank you for letting me know about this.”

_ And now a new question _ . He thought to himself as he waved his nurse back over.  _ Last thing I need right now. Who the fuck killed Colonel Erikson? _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What, you think I wasn't playing a long game with Tom? You have no idea how long I've been holding onto this.
> 
> Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Theories? Find me at http://youredgedadsareshowing.tumblr.com/ and @TheJudgeCoffee on twitter!
> 
> Thank you to my beloved Beta Aisu, who ranted with me throughout this process!


	8. The Funeral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a heads up this chapter contains: Poorly managed anger issues and bad communication skills

Jack hadn’t expected the flight to be silent. He hadn’t known what to expect, exactly. Just not silence.

His head had been clearer since he’d finally been able to sleep, but he’d hardly call it “clarity”. Gabriel’s nurse was a mixed blessing. She read her books and ignored the other passengers. Gabriel stared out the window, tapping his hand against the glass. All he’d done was nod at Jack when he’d gotten on the plane - hadn’t even said his name. Jack wasn’t sure he wanted Gabriel to.

It was hard enough to watch him. It was obvious Gabriel was still in a lot of pain. He hunched protectively over the side where he’d been impaled. He cradled his hand against his chest. He held his legs together. He hid it by not saying anything out loud, or even flinching when he leaned against his seat in a way that Jack couldn’t imagine was comfortable. Fast healing or not, he wasn’t invincible. And the hand didn’t look as good as Jack was hoping it would.

Jack pulled his own hand into his lap, trying not to think about it too hard. Hands. Something about hands, ever since he’d let go of Abbey’s. It made him touch his neck in sympathetic discomfort, remembering the searing pain when the Bastion’s gunfire had torn into him. His voice hadn’t been the same since then; he’d gotten gravely and he couldn’t really shout the way he had before. A far reach from what Gabriel was going though - or was it?

Everything would be different. Gabriel would need people who loved him to tell him that everything was going to be alright. And Jack wouldn’t be that person, no matter how much he wished he could be. He’d said it was over because it needed to be over.

He closed his head and leaned against the window of the plane. He didn’t want to look at Gabriel not looking at him.

So, he slept.

Despite his fear that he would dream about Tucson or Gabriel’s bloody hands, he didn’t. He dreamed about Gabriel’s birthday again. He dreamed about Gabriel smelling his neck. About licking the sweat off Gabriel’s chest. Gabriel’s warm hands on his thighs, stroking down him and-

“Mr. Morrison?” someone whispered, shaking his shoulder lightly.

He glanced up at Gabriel’s nurse, who smiled at him softly. “Sorry to wake you. We’ve just landed. Ms. Adawe hired a car for us to the hotel near the cemetery.”

Jack smiled at her politely, but she blushed. People always seemed to do that when he smiled politely.

“Thank you.” He nodded, getting to his feet, letting the nurse walk ahead of him to where Gabriel was waiting.

Gabriel glanced over at him, his lips set in a thin frown. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, then closed it again, glancing out towards the platform. “We should get to the hotel. Drop off our stuff and clean up before we head over. Sound good?”

Jack nodded slowly, glancing at the nurse, who seemed to have picked up on the tension. “Okay, yeah. Your order, Commander.” He sounded a little too bitter when he said it.  _ I don’t want you here _ .

Gabriel scowled, waving for his nurse. “Let’s go.”

Jack shoved his hands in his pockets and followed, sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose.  _ I just want you to understand _ . He would have screamed it if he could have.

Gabriel stared out the window for the entire ride to the hotel. With his good hand he tapped on his knee, which was annoying, but Jack didn’t say anything, and neither did the nurse. Having her there was like a babysitter watching over them. A spy who might tattle on them to their mommy and daddy – ostensibly, he realized, Adawe and Petras.

Or maybe she worked for the Canadian government? She could have just as easily been one of Sam’s spies. He wasn’t even sure what Sam’s actual job was. He hadn’t asked. It hadn’t mattered.  _ As long as we get the job done. _

“Deep in thought, Commander Reyes?” She asked, smiling to cut the tension.

“Yes,” Gabriel said, not elaborating.

Jack suspected further prompting would not improve Gabriel’s mood. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t catch your name. Nurse-?”

And so the rest of the trip was filled with platitudes and friendliness. Empty words, and Gabriel didn’t contribute in the slightest. Jack didn’t invite him to.

_ Ana’s right. How the hell are we supposed to work together now _ ?

The hotel was nice, though not the usual level of class Jack had gotten weirdly used to since Overwatch had started to take off. The most awkward thing was that he still shared a room with Gabriel - two queen sized beds, plus a conjoined room for the nurse.

Gabriel went to the bathroom with his suit slung over his lap. “Don’t help me. Settle in,” he’d said to the nurse.

She’d sighed, looking over at Jack. “If he falls, please come and get me. He shouldn’t be doing so much on his own.”

Jack had smiled, despite himself. “Can’t stop what’s in the man’s nature, I guess.”  _ No, I can’t, can I _ ? “I promise, something happens, you’ll be the first person on my list.”

When she left, he dressed slowly. Briefly, almost out of habit, he hoped Gabriel would walk out and find him changing. Before, of course, that was what he was used to hoping for.  As soon as he realized what he was doing, he sped up, but it still took forever for Jack to tie the tie. It always did without Ana or Gabriel helping him, but he figured it out eventually.

He paused again when he heard Gabriel’s low swearing from the bathroom. Buttons. Of course, Gabriel couldn’t use buttons.

Jack wavered back and forth, hovering near the bathroom door. He sighed, brushing his hair back. He needed the mirror anyway. “Gabe? Mind if I come in? I need the sink.”  _ I don’t want to see them. _

“Free country,” came Gabriel’s hiss from the other room. “Not like I’m whipping out anything you haven’t seen before.”

Jack sighed, opening the door and peaking in slowly. Gabriel had at least managed to put on his pants, but he was doing up his shirt one-handed, and poorly. Jack could already tell he’d fucked up at least two of the buttons.

“Uh, I needed… do you want help?” Jack asked, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Oh yeah, because having my ex swaddle me like a child is exactly the vision of how I wanted this day to go.” Gabriel sighed, throwing up his hands - before hissing in pain and reaching down to his side. “God damn it.”

Jack sighed, kneeling down and undoing the buttons of Gabriel’s shirt. He didn’t  _ love _ hearing Gabriel phrase it like that. His ex. But that’s what he was, wasn’t he? Even though he was right there, touching Gabriel’s skin, helping him look presentable, they weren’t even an approximation of what they had been. Normally, they would have told each other jokes, teased each other… probably wound up fooling around for a while. Maybe not, since it was a funeral they were attending, but even then it was hard to tell.

What was the old phrase? “Beside every cemetery, there was a motel”? That sounded like a bad joke Gabriel would tell. 

Instead, there was silence. He hated the  _ silence _ .

He glanced up at Gabriel, who was rather deliberately not looking at him. “If we’re going to still be on a team… I’d rather it was as not awkward as possible.”

Except he was touching Gabriel’s chest and fixing the buttons of his shirt, like he would have done only a week before.

“Uh-huh,” Gabriel said, leaning back in his chair and raising his head so that Jack could fix his collar. “In that case you’re not doing a great job so far.”

“If you’re going to be an ass about it, I can go,” Jack said, taking Gabriel’s tie from beside the sink and wrapping it around his neck. “You’re not the one who has the right to be pissed off right now.” He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice, but he couldn’t. He wanted to bury the anger. To not think about how betrayed he felt. To never see Gabriel again just to… to make it easier. To make the feeling go away.

To stop dreaming about everyone he couldn’t save, and stop equating Gabriel with them.

Gabriel grabbed Jack’s wrist with his good hand, pulling it back. “ _ I _ don’t have the right to be pissed off? You can be as mad as you fucking want, Prom King, but don’t you fucking tell me how to  _ feel _ about getting dumped. Especially not for saving your ungrateful  _ life _ -!”

Jack saw red, and then he hit him.

He regretted it the moment he felt the back of his hand hit the side of Gabriel’s face, and his stomach dropped at the sickening sound the wheelchair made when it went over, taking Gabriel with it. The other man clattered to the floor, grunting as he landed, and Jack was too paralyzed to move.

“Fucking  _ ow _ , Jack!” Gabriel growled from the floor, holding his face where Jack had hit him.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Jack knelt down quickly, moving Gabriel back into the chair and hauling it up. His chest felt tight, and his body felt stiff and  _ wrong _ . It was too much like what had happened with Nathan on the roof. Except that time he hadn’t stopped. “I shouldn’t… it doesn’t matter how pissed off I was, that wasn’t… I don’t know what I was thinking.” He wasn’t thinking. He’d just been  _ angry _ .

“No shit,” Gabriel said, rubbing his cheek. It didn’t look swollen, but Jack was more worried he might have torn open Gabriel’s stitches or that he’d hurt his hand in the fall. “If you’re trying to just go for the full dishonorable discharge, that’s a good place to start.  _ Fuck _ .”

Jack gripped the wheelchair tightly, trying to ignore Gabriel’s barbs. “So do it then. Tell Adawe to send me away. If I’m not fit for duty or to work with you than just-!”

Gabriel hit him back. Not nearly as hard as Jack had hit him, it was more of a surprise than anything painful, and Jack didn’t know if that was deliberate or because Gabriel wasn’t strong enough to do more than that.

He wished it had been harder. He  _ deserved  _ that, and so much worse.

“Stop acting like a fucking child, Jack! You’re here because we need you, and I needed you not dead! You keep wanting an apology for me saving your life, and I can deal with you dumping me, but not you acting like I did it to hurt you! It was a fight we would have lost, and if we’d given the Omnics what they wanted more people would have died! I ran the numbers, and I knew you wouldn’t have accepted it!”

“They weren’t numbers!” Jack snapped back, standing tall and glaring down at Gabriel. Even in the chair it was hard to act like he wasn’t a commanding presence. “They were people,  _ real _ people, with families, with  _ lives _ , and now they’re dead and it’s because you were too much of a coward to even try to save them! They needed us, and we abandoned them, and I’m not going to stand here and pretend that I’m okay with that!”

“Oh, and here we go! Proving my fucking point!” Gabriel snapped back. “If you’re dead, you can’t save  _ anyone _ , and that’s exactly what we would have been! I couldn’t have saved those people,  _ you _ couldn’t have saved those people! We can’t control everything, Jack! We don’t get to make the rules! And I wish I could have trusted you to know that, but you  _ don’t _ ! You have to be the big fucking hero, and if you keep doing it, you’ll die, and I  _ can’t _ -!” He cut himself off, and Jack could see that he was shaking. “I’ve lost too many people that I love already. I’m not losing you like that. I  _ can’t _ . So be as angry at me as you fucking want, but I’m not going to apologize for saving your life. I love you too much.” He dropped his hands, shaking his head. “And you’re too fucking good at this for me to send you away just because you’re pissed at me. We have a real chance at winning. And those people didn’t die for nothing. They died so that everyone in Vancouver could  _ live _ .”

Jack looked away, unable to meet Gabriel’s eyes. He knew there was an amount of  _ right _ in what Gabriel was saying that he couldn’t fight with. An amount he didn’t  _ want _ to fight with, because then he could let it go. He could make it okay that he had been right there, with all those people around him, and that they hadn’t died in vain. That it was alright that Gabriel hadn’t trusted him, because all of Jack’s instincts had been wrong.

The thought made him sick to his stomach.

“I can’t be okay with that, Gabe.” Jack shook his head, leaning back against the sink before putting his head in his hands. “I just can’t. Not without even trying. I don’t even know how to keep fighting if it just means sacrificing people I could just… I could have reached out and touched them. I could have done  _ something _ .”

Gabriel reached out slowly, taking Jack’s hands between his, the harsh feeling of the cast strange against Gabriel’s skin. “I know you believe that. And I know you believed that then. But Jack, you also have to know somewhere in there that you would have died trying. And if we’d died trying, and that Omnium hadn’t been destroyed… the risk was too much. Too many people would have died if we’d failed.”

Jack didn’t want to look at him. He didn’t want to accept that.

“So that’s it, then,” he said quietly, shaking his head. “Some cases are just hopeless, and I need to get over it. That’s what you’re saying?”

Gabriel sighed. “No, Jack, fuck. It’s not like it was an easy choice. It was a shitty choice, and the reason they stuck me with being in charge is because when you have to make the shitty choice, I’ll do exactly what has to be done. I just… I need to know that when push comes to shove, you won’t charge into a situation you can’t get out of. It’s one thing to charge some Bastions, but just the two of us against an entire Omnium with no backup except an airstrike? There was no getting out of that. I just need you to not  _ do _ shit like that. I need to know I can trust you to keep your head in the game, even when it’s shitty.”

Jack looked back at him, too tired to yell. “Then I need you to do something for me, too.”

Gabriel nodded back, seeming to be listening. Really listening. “If we can make this fucking work… I don’t even mean  _ us _ , I mean Overwatch. We’re a team and I need you. Just tell me.”

“I need you to be  _ better _ ,” Jack said, as meaningfully as he could. “I need to know when it’s hard, not impossible, just… when it’s  _ hard _ that you’ll still try. I need to know you’ll go for it. Because I’m not here for me, I’m here for those people, out there… and I need to know that what we’re doing is to save them. So just… be  _ better _ .” It was all he could ask for.

All he could hope to ask for, if he was ever going to feel right again.

Gabriel looked at him, his brows knitting together as if, for a moment, he might lie, or say no, or tell Jack off again. Instead, he nodded. “I can do that.”

Jack nodded back slowly, reaching out and fixing Gabriel’s tie. It felt better. Right, at least. “Okay… then that’s good enough for me.”

It had to be.

~~~

Gabriel was, if anything, a little relieved that Jack had hit him. It was a start towards Jack just letting it out, and not bottling things up. He also sort of felt like he had deserved it. Whether he was right or not, he’d betrayed Jack’s trust, and Ana had called him out on what he really  _ should _ have known, and probably had.

_ Be better _ . As if it were that easy, but if Gabriel was going to fix things, then he sure as hell had to try. At least he’d gotten to say his piece, and Jack had managed to make it clear where he stood on the whole thing. Which was ‘not in a great place’, but at least they seemed to have gotten over the first bump. It would have to do.

His nurse was at least polite enough to not say anything about the yelling in the bathroom they’d been doing, and their trip to the funeral service was a short and silent one. The actual funeral was, predictably, full of crying family members and respectful soldiers. Briefly, Gabriel spotted the infamous Admiral Erikson, an older and stern faced woman who looked just like the kind of cold loveless bitch that might have raised an asshole like Nathan Erikson.

He avoided her, and Jack noticeably seemed to try and move to the opposite end of the room from her both during the service and at the burial. She didn’t speak to anyone except an older couple that Gabriel discovered were the elder Mr. and Ms. Erikson, and a woman who may have been the Colonel’s wife, but by then he had stopped paying attention.

A sad service for a sad military family. One where plenty of soldiers and hangers on tried to make their way towards Jack and Gabriel, infamous SEP and Overwatch members. Gabriel stayed polite, where he could, greeting the members of SEP that he recognized, and chatting idly with them.

He had more important business, knowing what he knew about the circumstances of the Colonel’s death. There were only two people he knew of that were still alive who would have known about how Thomas Bowman died: General Kaplan and Dr. Okoye.

Interestingly enough, they spent most of the funeral together.

Eventually Gabriel was able to make his way to them alone. He had opted for the cane during the funeral, which was exhausting, and almost made him wish he’d caved and stuck with the wheelchair. He’d had enough of sitting, but his body obviously needed it.

At least it gave him a good excuse to move close to them and sit down.

General Kaplan looked older, two years since Gabriel had last seen him. His skin was weathered and cracked in a way that made Gabriel think he’d been spending way too much time outdoors for a General of his stature, and though his face had always been wrinkled, it seemed like the war had made the man look like he should have been in his eighties rather than his fifties or sixties. Clearly, war didn’t agree with him, and Gabriel prayed that he aged better than his old boss did in the long run.

Dr. Okoye was finally starting to look her age as well. She’d always looked younger than Gabriel assumed she actually was, with a perpetually calm face, her wiry black hair tightly held in a bun and her brown eyes piercing every corner of the room. She was greying now, and had crows feet around her eyes and wrinkles near her mouth. Not frown or smile wrinkles. The kind that showed she’d never been very expressive. He’d always thought she had a certain elegant beauty to her that reminded him a little of his mother, though she had a thoroughness to her that was a little more like his grandmother. She had always been hard to nail down. Like a phantom.

He did love listening to her talk, though.

“Strike Commander Reyes, lovely of you to join us,” she said with a low baritone that he always thought would have been better suited for a jazz singer than a scientist.

Kaplan snorted, leaning up against the wall. “Here I was thinking someone with your schedule would be too busy for your old backwater team. But clearly they’ve got you benched, so nothing like free funeral food I guess.”

“Oh, yeah, the shitty coffee is  _ really _ what draws me to a funeral,” Gabriel said, lifting his cup to his lips and surveying the room, “and not the incredibly interesting way the Colonel died.”

Okoye raised an eyebrow at Kaplan, sipping at her own coffee. “…as I was saying, General, we can’t expect this to stay quiet for long.”

“Yeah, and thanks for the nice lead-in there, Reyes. It’s only been two years since you called or wrote,” Kaplan said, sighing. “We’ve been making our list of everyone who would know the… circumstances of Thomas Bowman’s death. As far as we’re aware, that would be the three of us, Goldman, Parsons, Weber and Erikson. That was the direct circle. Helps that everyone on it that isn’t  _ here _ is dead.”

Gabriel looked at him, curious. “Weber died too?”

“Two months ago.” Okoye nodded, taking a seat beside Gabriel. “Fell down his stairs. We did not think much of it at the time… in light of this, though, we’ve become rather more concerned.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Why didn’t you think much of it at the time?”

“Weber had himself a bit of a…” Kaplan raised his hand to his mouth, mimicking a glass, “problem, let’s say.”

“Could he have told someone, then? Because frankly I don’t think anyone standing right here went out of their way to kill the good Colonel,” Gabriel said, crossing his arms.

He’d known Kaplan for years. He had pulled him into the Court, and eventually put him in charge of it, before SEP. Kaplan was political, but he wouldn’t stab anyone in the back if they toed the line. Erikson wasn’t a man who was going to step out of place, but the Admiral was dangerous. Killing her brother, Gabriel could believe. But in such an outlandish fashion? Not likely.

Okoye he’d known for a shorter time, but he believed she’d killed Erikson even less. Though, she’d already killed one of the Erikson family for him. That had been quiet. No fanfare. She’d also killed Nathan when he’d been in a coma, and the Colonel may have been an older man, but if it came down to a fight? He supposed that she could have drugged him. The Colonel trusted her. She could have done it.

Except then Gabriel also had to picture her butchering geese. Not Okoye’s style, or Kaplan’s.

“I would have said you if you didn’t have such an obvious alibi.” Kaplan snorted. “You’re the one who came up with the idea in the first place.”

“It was a bit of a snap decision. We had to deal with them somehow.” And hide the blood George had left behind. The op had been messy. One agent dead. Abbey had been wounded.

“Last time we ever got the team together, huh?” Abbey said, leaning across his chair into his lap. “You and me, making it happen?” She leaned up, looking him dead in the eye. “And isn’t that the fucking joke? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I killed him.”

Gabriel put his hand through her face, wanting to banish her. “So, who had a bone to pick with the Colonel, who might also have a bone to pick with Weber? If he was murdered and didn’t just fall down the stairs.” Which he might have. It was still hard to say. He hadn’t known Weber well; they’d never had the rapport he felt he had with Okoye.

Kaplan and Okoye shared a long glance, and she offered a small shrug, gesturing towards him. “Up to you, General.”

Kaplan sighed, crossing his arms and glancing around. Once he seemed confident no one was listening, he spoke again. “SEP is coming back. It was decided about three ago. We’ve been narrowing down candidates, Colonel Erikson was making the final calls this week while Okoye looked for her new… partner.”

Gabriel frowned, glancing at Okoye. “What, you had a breakthrough?”

Okoye smiled back at him, or sort of smiled. He was fairly certain her lips curled up. “We did have quite a breakthrough, yes. Considering how… successful you have all been, and the change in tides for the war since Overwatch, it only makes sense.”

“So, our common thread is that both Weber and Erikson were involved in SEP before, and will be again,” Gabriel said, keeping his opinion on the subject of SEP to himself. “They also both knew about the Bowman incident. Any  _ actual _ suspects?”

Kaplan shrugged. “Not really, no. Unless we can figure out who else knew about the whole goose incident, we’re SOL. Anyone want to fess up that they told someone else about it?”

Gabriel glanced at Okoye and she glanced at him. She shrugged, he shrugged. No one.

“Great, so we have nothing.” Kaplan growled. “Unless someone’s planning on walking out of their grave and taking the credit.”

Gabriel frowned a little deeper. “There’s something, then. Bodies.”

Erikson had a body. They’d just seen it put in the ground. It sounded like Weber had a funeral of his own. George had gone down with a bullet in him, and Bowman was very dead, Gabriel had seen to that himself. There was only one body they didn’t have. One kill they hadn’t confirmed.

He and Jack had survived the fall from the top of the Omnium. How far had Abbey fallen?

Okoye looked at him, eyebrow raised delicately. “Abigail Goldman’s body, you mean? I doubt that very much. Morrison indicated that she had fallen quite a distance after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds from a bastion.  _ If _ she survived the fall, she was in hostile territory with no reinforcements. She wouldn’t have survived.”

Wouldn’t have survived, unless the Omnics had been taking prisoners back then too.

“No, you’re right. Just the first thing that came to mind,” Gabriel said, staring off to the side of the room. Abbey waved at him from the corner, but then she was gone. Fading away completely.

Alive. What if she had still been alive, and he had left her there?

~~

Jack could feel his blood pressure go through the roof the second he had seen Admiral Erikson. He should have known, in hindsight, that she would be there.

Nathan’s mother.

She looked a bit like him, if he had actually had confidence instead of arrogance. And maybe someone had stuck a ramrod up his ass. She looked a bit more like her brother in that respect, except she had piercing eyes that Jack didn’t want to try and lie to.

_ How well did you know my son _ ? Well enough that Jack had tried to beat him to death. That Nathan died because of him. What was worse, he kept seeing her glancing over at him like she might consider speaking to him.

He was relieved when he saw a different, somewhat friendly face. Nadia Kowalski, his friend Maggie’s old partner. She spotted him, and raised a cup of coffee towards him, so he quickly made his way over in lieu of potentially having to speak with the Admiral.

“Hey, Nadia. Wasn’t sure you’d say hello,” he said, making himself a cup of coffee, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the Admiral hadn’t followed him.

Nadia shrugged, always a woman of few words. “Don’t know many people here. Figured you’ve been doing something interesting since the last time I saw you.”

“I… yeah,” Jack said, almost immediately regretting starting the conversation at all. “It’s been a lot. Good, obviously… we’re doing a lot of good.” When he wasn’t dreaming about people screaming.

Nadia seemed to pick up on his tension, nodding quietly. “Well, I’d rather have your job than ours. SEP survivors have been having a hell of a time.”

Jack looked back, concerned now. It was always easier to deal with someone else’s problems than his own. “What do you mean?”

Nadia shrugged. “No offense, but you and Reyes are setting the precedent with Overwatch. The invincible SEP. They’ll send us into the worst messes they can find, like we’ll solve it just by being there. I’ve had sniper missions where it’s just me in hostile Omnic territory for weeks. Like I don’t need to sleep.” She stared off out the window. The kind of thousand yard stare that Jack saw on Ana sometimes, when she talked about her old sniper postings in Egypt.

She never said much, just that it wasn’t for the faint of heart.

“Christ, I… sorry, Nadia, I didn’t realize,” Jack said quietly, setting down his coffee.

Was that what would have waited for him, if Adawe and Gabriel had let him leave Overwatch?

“Not many of us left now. There were what… eighty or so of us? Not counting the ones who didn’t make it through the process,” Nadia said, swirling her mug. “My last count had us under twenty. But I haven’t heard from most of them in a while.”

Jack looked around the room. He recognized a few members of SEP, but not many. Maybe five, besides him and Gabriel, and none he’d known well. He took a sharp breath. “Any word from Maggie?” She wasn’t there.

Nadia shook her head. “No. They had her on Special Projects, last I heard. She could still be in the field somewhere, or she could be dead. No way for me to know, really. They didn’t keep us paired up very long. She wanted to be on the front lines. Haven’t seen her in person for… I don’t know, a year now? Maybe more.”

Jack bit his lip, closing his eyes. He tried to picture Maggie’s face. What she might look like now, after so long. She’d saved his life, back when he’d been shot in the throat. Always had his back. A bit like how he saw Ana now, a good partner and even better friend.

He hadn’t even sent her an email since he’d joined Overwatch.

“Shit…” he mumbled, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I had no idea how fucked up things had gotten over here.”

“Desperate times.” Nadia shrugged again, nodding towards where Gabriel was standing, with Dr. Okoye and General Kaplan. “Rumors are starting to spread that SEP is coming back, to replace everyone they’ve lost. I can bitch all I want, but they’re right. They send us into the danger areas because we work.”

“Right, one of us as good as ten men, rah, rah, rah,” Jack said, looking at Gabriel, who seemed too deep in conversation now to notice. “I thought it was too dangerous to take it back up?”

“I only hear rumors, Jack,” Nadia said, staring at Okoye with an almost dead look in her eyes. “I’m not high enough up to get any real information. My guess, though? They think it’s worth the risk if they can get two more like you and him.”

“Right… last thing the world needs is two more of us,” Jack said, smiling faintly.

As if he and Gabriel could ever make up for all the ways they’d failed.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this chapter in my head so long, it feels good to get it down.
> 
> Thank you to my wonderful beta Aisu for stroking my ego too much, and also being a great editor.
> 
> Questions? Concerns? Comments? Just feel like chatting? I'm STILL MORE OR LESS (UNTIL I GET DELETED FOR PORN PEDDLING) at http://youredgedadsareshowing.tumblr.com/, and you can find me more actively shit-posting on Twitter @TheJudgeCoffee
> 
> Happy holidays!


	9. The Baseline

**Chapter Nine** : The Baseline

Gabriel lay awake trying to think of a plan. Obviously, he couldn’t loudly announce that he thought the Colonel had been murdered, or by who, and there would be no investigation. Unless Justine Shaw made the connection loudly enough to catch some attention.

He could hint towards it for her, lay it out so that she knew for sure there was a connection. The problem was that led right back to him and SEP, which was probably not a good plan. The General might look into it - and then deal with it in his own personal Court rather than anything public.

If it had been Abbey, though - and who else could it be? Who else knew and could pull off kidnapping and murdering the Colonel? Weber would have been an easy target. Making it look like an accident could be done with a snap of her fingers. Or more likely, a light touch to the back of the knee. And would there be more? Was it revenge for being left behind? Who else was left? Okoye was next, if Weber and Erikson had gone down.

Okoye had even taken him aside after Kaplan was called away, and given him a number she claimed was for a secure line. “ _We have to talk,_ _when it’s safe_.” She probably suspected the same thing he did. Or at least had an inkling that she was in danger.

He looked over at the other bed where Jack lay. It didn’t look like he was sleeping particularly well, twitching and clawing at the sheets.

Would Abbey blame Jack? It would be harder to target Overwatch agents than just about anyone besides Kaplan, but…

Jack started to mumble something in his sleep, his fist clenching on the bed. “No… no, no…” He shook his head, teeth grinding so loudly that Gabriel could hear them.

“Shit…” Gabriel mumbled, glancing at the clock. 2am. He sat up, moving slowly to the side of Jack’s bed, trying to stay back far enough that Jack wouldn’t be able to hit him with another right hook.

He was already sure that the last one would bruise.

Gently, he took Jack’s clenched fist with his good hand, pressing it down against the bed. “Jack, Jack, come on… you’re dreaming, hey-”

Jack did take a swing at him, but it was wide, and Gabriel was alert enough that he could easily dodge it. He grabbed Jack’s hand and pressed it to the bed, shaking him again – ignoring the pain – to draw him out of whatever nightmare world Jack was living in.

“Jack!” Gabriel snapped, holding him down and leaning in. “Jack, wake up, you’re dreaming!”

Jack’s eyes snapped open, blind panic on his face as he drew in a sharp and desperate breath.

He held it for a moment, eyes wide as he stared down Gabriel, recognition coming to him as the glaze crept back. “Gabe…? What’re you…?”

“You were a second away from screaming in your sleep. Thought it was better to wake you,” Gabriel said, not wanting to let go. Jack was so close. It made anything else hard to focus on. His eyes. His lips. He wanted to kiss him. He wanted to hold onto that feeling from the cave… but he’d fucked it up. “You okay?”

Jack didn’t pull back. Not at first. His look softened a little, and it was almost easy to forget. “No… just dreaming too much. Too many nightmares.” He licked his lips briefly, then pulled back. “Sorry, can you let go? I’m not… going to hit you.”

Or kiss him, Gabriel supposed.

He let go, sitting on the side of the bed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to make it weird… just felt like I should.”

“No, it’s-” Jack reached out, his fingers just brushing Gabriel’s arm, but no more than that. Something small, and close, but not close enough. “Thank you.”

Who was left that had been on, or in charge, of the mission where Abbey had “died”?

Jack. Okoye. Maggie. Him? Would Abbey come after him too, for leaving her behind?

_ If it’s even her. _ It could very well not be. There were other options. Just none that were readily apparent.

Gabriel sighed, rubbing his face and scratching at his beard. “I needed to talk to you anyway. Don’t give it a second thought. I, uh…”

He needed to warn Jack. If it was her, he could be in danger. And he needed to know how to stop her.

Jack just watched, staying quiet as Gabriel spoke. Gabriel had told him, a few times, pieces of what he had done before SEP and Overwatch. That he had been to some dark places. This was darker.

“I don’t think Colonel Erikson killed himself, like they’re saying he did. I think he was murdered,” Gabriel said, turning to the window so he wouldn’t get distracted. No big blue farmboy eyes. No tussled golden hair.

No wishing he could unfuck what he’d already fucked. It didn’t make him want to protect Jack any less, though. Some things were never going to change.

“The way he died… I don’t know if you heard. But there are details that are, uh, really specific to the way I ran an operation,” Gabriel said, wishing Jack would interrupt. “I used to do that… If you made it look like a suicide, people would ask different questions. The wrong questions, most of the time.”

He glanced back at Jack, who still listened, eyes downcast, fingers playing over his sheets. Something he didn’t want to hear, no doubt.

“The one this is closest to got messy. Really messy. It was the last operation Abbey and I ran together before she…” Gabriel trailed off. He never talked about Abbey, not out loud, not if he could help it.

“I do remember that.” Jack said, nodding. “It was… she got shot. It… you weren’t at your best.”

_ I’m not a monster _ . Gabriel had a vague recollection of that, but he had always tried not to think about the ‘before’ and ‘after’ a mission. Just the  _ during _ , when his blood ran hot, and he felt every waking second of his feet hitting the ground and his finger on the trigger. When every breath was a sick combination of luck and skill, and even pain faded away in a rush of adrenaline.

“Before” was anxiety and fear. “After” was regret and pain.

But yeah, he remembered what Thomas Bowman had called him. Monster. He didn’t know why that had bothered him so much. Enough that he had talked too much to Jack about it.

“I. yeah. That was the night it happened. It was an SEP operation. The only purely Black Ops one they ever performed. It was just me, Okoye, Erikson, Webber, Abbey, and one of my other squad mates, George-” 

Jack nodded along. “Yeah, I remember all this. George didn’t make it back. Abbey got hurt. You didn’t want to talk about it much, but she… she gave me some good advice.” He shrugged, smoothing his hands over the bed. “I remember she stepped in a bear trap. Did the Colonel step in one too?”

Gabriel winced. “No. Sort of grimmer than that. Involved some dead farm animals and a shotgun. But it’s way too specific to what I did for it to be an accidental recreation. Someone killed him, and they wanted me, Okoye and General Kaplan to know about it.”

Jack frowned. “So, okay, but who else knew? I mean, you just said Weber-”

Gabriel shook his head. “Also dead, as it turns out. Fell down some stairs, broke his neck.”

Jack raised his hands, making small finger quotes. “Fell down some stairs? Or… _fell_ _down some stairs_?”

“Heh, yeah, I’m thinking the later,” Gabriel said, cracking a small smile. “The thing is… I can’t really see Okoye being able to manage to kill Erikson the way he went down. I mean, maybe? But I doubt it. And I know for sure it’s not Kaplan’s style. He’d have someone else do it, and it implicates him in the whole thing, so why would he?”

Jack rubbed his eyes, shaking his head. “Maybe it’s that I just woke up and you know him better, but I don’t have a clue, Gabe.”

“Yeah… sorry, I got distracted there,” Gabriel said, rubbing his face again and scratching at his beard. He hated feeling nervous, but it was Jack, and he had to know what was on the table. “Listen, there’s only one person who knew and who I think could pull this off… so I needed to run something by you.” He took a deep breath. “How… sure are you that Abbey died? What did you see when it happened?”

Jack stared. He opened his mouth briefly, then shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck like he always did when he was nervous. “I… Gabe, that sounds - you know that sounds insane, right?”

Gabriel moved up further onto the bed, back beside Jack. “No, I know, but we never talked about it in detail. I just need to know what the chances are. Look, the one good thing that came out of, uh, what happened back in Canada, is that now we know the Omnics take prisoners. Maybe they were taking them back then, maybe they weren’t, but if they  _ were _ , then suddenly… this murder starts to make a lot of sense.”

Jack made a frustrated noise, his hand moving to the scar on his throat. “Fuck. Okay, my memory of what happened isn’t… great, but… look, I just can’t see how she would have survived. The bastion that got us… got  _ her… _ ” His grip tightened on his throat, pinching the skin. “It practically tore her in half. It could have killed her even before it hit me. And then the fall… we were so high up, I don’t know how she could have survived. But…”

“But?” Gabriel asked.

Jack shrugged, letting go of his neck. “I survived. I shouldn’t have. Nadia was saying at the funeral that a lot of the SEP survivors have… that whatever Okoye did to us does make us more resilient. If Abbey had been a normal person, yeah, she’d be dead. No question. But… I just watched you get impaled. I got shot through the throat. We both fell off the top of that Omnium, and it wasn’t nearly as far as she would have gone, but I barely had a bruise. If Ana or Torbjorn had gone over the side, it probably would have shattered their legs. Maybe killed them. And it’s not like Okoye was dropping us from taller and taller buildings to see exactly when the breaking point was.”

Maybe. The answer was maybe. Before, even if Abbey had survived the fall, in hostile territory she’d have died before. But if the Omnics had taken any prisoners?

Maybe.

“She could be out there,” Gabriel mumbled quietly. “If she’s trying to get back at us for leaving her behind, she might-”

Jack took Gabriel’s shoulder firmly. “Gabe, come on. You know her better than anyone, and you saw what happened at the Omnium. Do you think, if it is Abbey, she’s killing people like Erikson and Weber for revenge, or because of something the Omnics did to her? Those people weren’t going to be walking out of there on their own.”

“You’re right, you  _ don’t _ know her like I do,” Gabriel said, colder than he wanted to, but he  _ knew _ Abbey. If anyone could escape the Omnics, it was her. “She wouldn’t have killed Erikson that way if someone else was controlling her. No, no, that was to send a message, and she’s the  _ only _ one who knew how to send it-”

“Gabe, it might not  _ be _ her!” Jack snapped, running his hands through his hair. “Fuck, who says the Colonel didn’t tell someone to get at Kaplan for something? That Okoye didn’t use it as leverage? That Kaplan didn’t trot it out to show how scary he is? That one of them didn’t do  _ exactly _ what you’re doing right now and tell someone they were fucking about the whole thing!”

That gave Gabriel pause.

“You know Abbey, but I know  _ you _ . And I know you should be thinking of other, more plausible, options,” Jack said, slapping his hand down on the bed. “I know it’s been a fucked up week, but don’t let this cloud your judgement. You’re better than this. Don’t… cling to something that isn’t real.”

He’d been clinging to a lot of things that weren’t real lately.

“ _ We’re not here to act on what we don’t know, handsome. _ ” Abbey had said that once, a long time ago. The first time he’d seen her perform an active interrogation. “ _ When you’re starting a line of inquiry, start with the questions you already know the answer to. _ ”

“What’s real is that members of SEP high command are in danger. With Weber and Erikson down, Okoye is probably next on the list. Maybe Kaplan. Maybe me.” Gabriel looked at Jack sadly, wishing he could fix things with a flick of his wrist. “Maybe you. And you deserved to know that. I don’t want to keep you in the dark, Jack.”

_ I love you.  _ That was always going to be his answer. The baseline. So what would Abbey’s baseline be?

He remembered her. That first interrogation, her knuckles bloody, and one of the poor bastard’s teeth between her fingers. She’d flicked it across the room, giving Gabriel a wink. “ _ Let’s just keep all this between you and I, huh? No need to bother Juan with this _ .”

There was the start. Juan.

“Gabe,” Jack said quietly, drawing his attention back. “You’re a million miles away right now. I get that. But I think you’re right, people could be in danger. At the very least, let me help you. You think I could be a target, so keep me in the loop. What are you going to do?”

_ Be better _ . He had to keep Jack in the loop. Total honesty. No bullshit. That was the only way to get him and his big, blue puppy eyes back.

Though, there was “being honest” and there was “saying things that Jack wouldn’t  _ want _ to know.”

“We can’t be loud about what we’re looking at. What I did was… not on the up and up. And there are some suspicious parties already,” Gabriel said, a little hesitant to add that part. Had Jack known Thomas Bowman? He didn’t even remember. “Okoye wants to talk, and she might have her own theories that she didn’t want to talk about in front of Kaplan. But I need to make a stop in New York.”

Jack seemed to follow his train of thought. “Juan… you think she’d go back to him?”

“If she’s my Abbey and not the zombie you think she could be, then she wouldn’t go to her family, they’d turn her in. But he’d do anything she asked him to. No matter how grim,” Gabriel said, cradling his hand in his lap.

The first time Abbey had interrogated someone - tortured someone - the man had turned out to be innocent. Gabriel hadn’t know at the time, and he didn’t know if Abbey knew either. She’d beat the man’s face bloody, pried off his fingernails, and all the while Gabriel had walked back and forth across the room, asking questions they already knew the answers too.

“ _ I don’t know! I don’t  _ know!” For years Gabriel had still heard him screaming in his dreams.

Kaplan had been watching from another room with the man’s wife, as it had turned out. The real target. She had talked, eventually.

Eventually.

“You did a good job, for your first run at it,” Kaplan said, clapping Gabriel on the back. “Welcome to the Court. Let’s see what else you two can manage, huh?”

It hadn’t sat right with Gabriel, that first time. It had been far from the last.

“You’re going to lie to Juan about what we’ve been doing?” Gabriel had asked Abbey, on their way back from the mission.

She’d shrugged her broad shoulders, looked at the broken skin on her knuckles, and she’d smiled. “We have an understanding. There are things he knows I’m willing to do that he doesn’t want to know about. I told him if he wants to know, he can ask me. If he doesn’t… well, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. He’ll sleep better at night.”

“And that’s it? Doesn’t bother you at all, what we did? You don’t want to talk to someone about it?” Gabriel asked her, folding into himself and trying not to think about the broken shell they’d left behind. “What if it had been Juan in there? If I’d done that to him to get to you?”

Abbey had looked thoughtful, looking over her knuckles. Her normally expressive face had been distant, untouchable. Then she’d just shrugged, smirked at him, and raised an eyebrow. “Eh, sometimes you’re the bug, sometimes you’re the windshield.”

~~

Jack didn’t want to think too hard about the circumstances that led to whatever assassination Gabriel had carried out with Abbey. He’d known, even back then, that it wasn’t as though Gabriel had been flying overseas. He’d been there, somewhere in the United States. A few hours away.

Someone close to home, and someone SEP had wanted dead.

He hadn’t thought about it because, ultimately, it was easier not to consider what lurked in Gabriel’s past. He’d told himself it didn’t matter, because whoever Gabriel had been before, he wasn’t anymore. The past was the past. What had been done couldn’t be undone.

And, Jack reminded himself, he had no leg to stand on. Even if he hadn’t performed the killing blow, he’d been the poison that caused Nathan’s death. As much as he hated Nathan, as much as Jack believed he  _ deserved _ to die… did he?

Did he? Was being a fuckup enough to deserve to die? And if it was, Jack knew he was the one who had blown their cover at the Omnium. He had taken off his helmet. Been the blip on the radar that gave them away. He had blame to share, because if he had been able to keep his head on straight, Gabriel wouldn’t have had to make the ‘hard decision’ at all.

He hadn’t blamed Jack for that, even though Jack knew he could have. Gabriel hadn’t even brought up Jack’s amateur mistake when he could have. He  _ should _ have.

That had been what Jack was dreaming about, when Gabriel had woken him. He had been back in the room in Tucson, but instead of the bodies it had been the prisoners in the Omnium hanging from the ceiling. His mistake had killed them, not Nathan’s. Did that make him any better?

When Gabriel had woken him, there had been the momentary flash of panic, but seeing his face, and his eyes, that Jack had so heavily relied on for so long had been comforting. The deep brown of his eyes, the shape of his lips, the concern on his face. 

He’d had nightmares before, but usually when Gabriel had woken him, they would lay together, and Jack would sleep in his arms until they faded.

He wanted that back, but he’d driven in the wedge himself. All Jack had were doubts about himself, and Gabriel still seemed so sure he was right. But then, Gabriel was convinced he was right about Abbey too, and Jack remembered her death so vividly that he could practically smell it when he closed his eyes some nights.

Abbey was dead.  _ And even if she were alive, wouldn’t Gabe be one of the first people she went to _ ?

He wasn’t thinking clearly, and that made Jack nervous. If there was a killer out there who might target them, and all Gabriel could see was the possibility of Abbey still being alive, then he was fucked. He might not even see someone else coming.

Jack wasn’t even sure Gabriel was listening to anything he was saying.

“Do you know how you’re going to ask Juan if he’s seen her?” Jack asked, trying to use tact in the most gentle way he could.

Gabriel frowned, his brow furrowing. He heard  _ that _ , at least. “I’ll figure it out. I’ve known Juan a long time.”

“Have you talked to him at all, since she died?” Jack asked. Bad enough that  _ he _ hadn’t even emailed Maggie, but he was almost positive Gabriel hadn’t contacted Juan.

“I… no.” Gabriel said, hesitating over every syllable. “It will be fine. I know how to handle him.”

He sure didn’t look like he knew it.

“Okay. If you’re sure. I’ll go with you,” Jack said, moving in closer to Gabriel. Too close, probably.  _ You left him, don’t make this hard. _ But he couldn’t help it. Gabriel wasn’t in his right mind. “I’ve got your back.”

“I know,” Gabriel said, awkwardly reaching out, his fingers brushing over Jack’s hand.

It sent shivers down Jack’s spine, and he felt the hairs rise off the back of his arms.  _ Oh no _ .  _ Oh no. _ He didn’t want to pull away. He did want to pull away.  _ Fuck. F. U. C. K. _

“Sorry… shouldn’t have done that,” Gabriel said, pulling away, but Jack caught his fingers as he did, keeping him there.

“No, it’s just - you know it’s complicated,” Jack said, holding him in place, running his thumb over Gabriel’s fingers.  “I didn’t want it to be this hard.”

“Heh, it’s always hard, isn’t it?” Gabriel said, resting his hand against Jack’s. “I’m not asking you for anything.”

“I know,” Jack said, “I was angry. At you and at me. And I still am, I think. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, though. I still  _ love _ you, I’m just not… I need some time to figure things out. I want to stop being angry all the time.”

Gabriel nodded back at him, and there was something there that might have been understanding. Jack hoped it was. “I’m going to be better. I promise you. And we’ll figure this out. I’ll protect you.”

Jack smiled a little, taking Gabriel’s hand and kissing his fingers. “I don’t need you to protect me. I want us to work together, so don’t run off without me, okay?”

“Like I know how to go on without you anymore.” Gabriel snorted, standing up, and letting Jack’s hand fall away. “I’ll fix this.”

Jack bit his lip as Gabriel moved away. Not exactly the reaction he was hoping for. Gabriel was too lost in his own head to really listen.

Jack had to pull him back.

~~

Ana rolled over in her sleep, but woke when she felt her arm brush over Sam’s body beside her. She opened one eye, lazily, just to check on him. Sam was handsome, his long hair brushing over his cheeks, and the soft moonlight on his skin. He wasn’t strong, not like the men she was used to being around. He was soft, and warm - and just different. It was nice to not worry about him charging into battle again, where he would get himself killed, unlike every other idiot she knew. And unlike herself.

That made him a nice distraction. When she left, Sam would be nothing more than a fond memory. Someone who she had been able to save, and who had given her a fun ride.

She sighed, tracing her fingers over his tan skin, too soft to wake him. It was smooth, not like hers, and she’d enjoyed holding him because of that. If she’d had more time, she’d have liked to braid his hair for him.

It would make a nice way to pass the time, so she wouldn’t worry about things she couldn’t control. Instead, she dreamed about cities lying in ruin and people dragged off by the Omnics to dark prisons for reasons she didn’t understand.

Ana sighed, sitting up and pulling her blanket back over Sam’s shoulders. He squirmed for a moment at the cold air, but not for long. She wouldn’t be able to sleep again, but it was nice to know that he would.

She pulled her robe around her shoulders and glanced at the clock. Four o’clock in the morning. Not the earliest time she’d ever started, and she’d have happily slept until noon if she could have, but it wasn’t going to happen. Which meant coffee instead of sleep.

She crept into the hall, closing the door softly behind her, but to her surprise the lights were already on, and the fresh smell of brewed coffee filled her nose. Torbjorn sat at the counter, looking at a tablet and sipping at his drink.

“Not just me, then?” Ana asked, going and pouring her own cup.

Torbjorn made a small grunting noise, wiping his nose and not looking up. “Not just you. Difference is that I can actually do something, and you can just sit on your ass and hope your ribs don’t heal crooked.”

“Didn’t realize you were in a mood. Horrors be,” Ana said, sitting down across from him. “What are you  _ doing _ , then?”

“Scanning where the new Omnium could be, and reviewing the new files that the ground team is sending in so I can figure out what the Omnics want with human prisoners,” Torbjorn said, flicking his finger over the screen. “My best guess is just west of Thunder Bay, and possibly to scan human brainwaves.”

“Great, more cold,” Ana grumbled, taking a long drink of too-hot coffee. “Why would the Omnics scan human brainwaves?”

“Because that’s what their minds are based on,” Torbjorn mumbled, a dark look on his face. “It’s how  _ I _ designed them to work. But the God Programs are probably looking for higher thinking than the original intent. That means more minds, more tests, and more people.”

Ana frowned, twisting the mug in her hands. “Do you think the new Omnium would have prisoners?”

Torbjorn shook his head. “No, no towns have been hit in that region. This Omnium is too new. If we can find one that’s already well established and that we haven’t blown to hell, I can find out exactly what they were doing, and what they might have learned already. Maybe find out what twisted shit the God Programs have been up to.”

Ana nodded, sighing. “It never ends, does it?”

“One day, it will,” Torbjorn said, rubbing his face.

“This isn’t your fault, Torbjorn,” Ana said, not for the first time, knowing it would fall on deaf ears.

“You’d blame yourself if you were me, don’t pretend otherwise,” Torbjorn said, snorting. “You and the others can all act like all is forgiven, but this wouldn’t have happened without me. Every person who dies is a person I put the bullet in myself. It’s-”

Ana held up her hand, but not because Torbjorn wasn’t saying something she understood.

She heard something. Down the hall, a small creak in the floorboards, too soft to be Reinhardt, and too careful to be Sam. Then the sound of the creak of a door that hadn’t been oiled any time recently.

“Did you hear that?” Ana said, reaching under the table and grabbing a gun she’d stored there earlier.

Torbjorn reached into his pocket, pulling some kind of remote, slowly sliding down. “Yeah… who else is here?”

“No one,” Ana said, inclining her head to listen for another footstep. The bonus of old buildings was creaky floors, though normally she would have cursed that.

“Could be nothing,” Torbjorn said quietly, following after her as she crept back towards the hallway towards the bedrooms. “Who has any reason to-?”

The door to Gabriel’s room was open. So was Jack’s.

“Get Reinhardt.” Ana said quietly, raising her gun and moving towards Gabriel’s room.

Torbjorn broke off, going to Reinhardt’s room, but even his footsteps made sound. Ana just hoped whoever was there was too distracted to notice.

She peered into Gabriel’s room, scanning back and forth. Gabriel’s covers were pulled back, and the window to his room was wide open, curtains blowing as snow drifted into the room.

“ _ Ya ibn el sharmouta _ …” Ana swore under her breath, turning and raising her gun again, stepping towards Jack’s room. She moved slowly, her bare feet and careful movement soft enough that she didn’t make any noise.

She held her breath, stepping into the door frame.

Jack’s covers were pulled back. Windows were closed. Whoever was there hadn’t left yet. So where were-?

A long steel baton slammed down onto her wrists as she stepped over the threshold of the room, and she didn’t even have time to let out a yelp of pain before a dark figure moved into view, dropping to the floor and kicking her square in the chest. Ana sprawled to the floor, hearing a very audible crack from her already damaged ribcage. She lost her breath, scrambling to get to her feet, but the figure was on her again, and she almost tasted the leather of their boot as their foot hit her face.

She gasped, choking on her own blood as she spat out a tooth. Bleary eyed, she looked up at the figure above her. They were tall, whoever they were, dressed all in black with a long dark coat. No face. Whoever they were, they didn’t have a face.

“Where are they?” a voice said, distorted somehow - or maybe that was just the ringing in Ana’s ears, she wasn’t sure.

Ana coughed and spat out more blood. She reached up, wiping her mouth. “Never… tell you…”

“Hm. Shame,” the figure said, raising their boot.

“ANA!” The huge figure of Reinhardt slammed into the intruder, bringing them straight into the old brick wall and leaving a massive impact.

Ana would have laughed at Reinhardt wrestling wearing nothing but his boxers, but she was in far too much pain. She also didn’t have long to feel relieved, because as soon as Reinhardt hit the intruder into the wall, he was flung back. The intruder had moved up between the wall and Reinhardt’s chest, kicking him down and using their leverage to take him off balance.

“What the hell is-!?” Sam was at Ana’s door, eyes open wide as he looked down at her. “Ana-!?”

“SAM RUN!” Ana yelled, staggering to her feet as the dark figure moved from the wall towards her and Reinhardt.

Reinhardt got up, growling under his breath, getting between Ana and Sam and their unwelcome guest. “Get to safety, I will remove this one.” He raised his scarred knuckles, breathing hard as he steadied himself.

The intruder chuckled, changing their stance into what Ana vaguely recognized as a boxing defensive position.

“Reinhardt…” Ana stumbled forward, but her gun was in Jack’s room, and the big German and their new friend were between them.

“Ana, get out of here!” Torbjorn snapped, grabbing hold of Sam’s arm and shoving him back towards the kitchen.

“Gun!” Ana snapped back at him, holding out her hand.

“I don’t have a gun, they’re all outside the building-!” Torbjorn said, waving his remote again.

Then Ana heard another sickening snapping sound. Reinhard stumbled back, his nose practically spraying blood across the floor. He stumbled again, breathing hard.

“Crafty one…” he spat, glaring back at the intruder, who followed after him menacingly until they seemed to see someone.

Ana thought it might be her for a moment, but then she saw that their new friend was looking in Torbjorn’s direction.

“Ah, you. You’ll do as a consolation prize.” They darted forward, darting almost effortlessly under Reinhardt’s open arms, heading straight towards Torbjorn. They whipped out the baton they had struck Ana with, running full speed towards Torbjorn, whose eyes went wide as he turned to run.

Ana dropped to the ground, taking advantage of the intruder’s momentary distraction to sweep her leg under their feet, tripping them and taking them off guard. “I’m not finished yet, coward!”

Reinhardt rushed in, jumping in top of the intruder and pinning them to the ground. “I have you now!”

“ _ Overwatch _ …” The intruder hissed from under him. Then they bucked up, slamming the back of their head into Reinhardt’s already broken nose, and hitting him up with more force than a normal person should have been able to.

_ No normal person can get Reinhardt like that, _ Ana thought, rushing to her feet and diving past Reinhardt into the open door of Jack’s room, scrambling to grab her gun.

_ Only Jack and Gabe can move like that. _

The intruder dove after her, grabbing Ana’s foot and dragging her back from the door. “Enough!”

Reinhardt kicked them in the back of their shin, knocking them off their feet again. “Torbjorn, get away!”

Torbjorn nodded, turning and running towards his workshop, but Ana paid him no mind for the moment. She grabbed her gun from the floor, flipping onto her back and aiming squarely at the intruder. Whoever they were, they were as strong at Gabriel and as agile as Jack, and even when she fired Ana knew she wasn’t going to get the shot she wanted.

Ana  _ did _ get their shoulder, making the intruder scream – but something about the sound was barely human. She almost thought that it was a distortion from whatever cloaking device they were using for their voice, but it was more than that. It made Ana’s blood run cold.

It did not stop her from firing again.

The intruder ran this time, going through Gabriel’s room.

“Torbjorn! Turrets up!” Ana shouted, stumbling to the door and firing again. She missed the intruder, narrowly, because she heard the metallic denting sound of the bullet glancing off the faceless mask.

The faceless attacker turned and looked at Ana over their shoulder, and something about it, and the memory of the horrible scream, made her feel - afraid. 

“In the end, you will not be enough,” they said.

Then they dropped out the window, vanishing into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.
> 
> Thanks to the lovely Aisu for keeping my head in the game!
> 
> Questions, concerns, and screaming about feelings can still be directed to http://youredgedadsareshowing.tumblr.com/, and you can find me currently shit-posting about cowboys on Twitter @TheJudgeCoffee
> 
> See y'all in the new year!


	10. Puppy Dog Lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so it's been a week, huh?
> 
> So, Baset came out recently! There was an awfully big revelation in that re: Jack's sexuality. So I just wanted to address this quickly for those who don't follow me on Tumblr or Twitter. In this fic as I originally had it, Jack is mentioned to be bisexual a few times. This was mainly because I was anticipating he'd probably be given a female love interest in cannon and wanted an easy out for that, but obviously that's not a thing I need to consider anymore. For the purposes of story, it likely won't be addressed again, but I just wanted to mention in case that comes up at a later date, as at the moment I'm not doing any retroactive editing.
> 
> On the subject of Vincent: Since in cannon Vincent and Jack would have been dating about... now, don't expect him to show up. I'm not planning on making any sweeping changes to my original plot. As of now, this is a canon-divergent story in the vein of "If Vincent and Jack had never met and never dated".
> 
> Just wanted to clarify my stance on that! I'm super pumped that a lot of my characterizations seem to be on point, and hey everyone: JACK'S GAY!
> 
> Now let's dive into something very depressing!

**Chapter Ten** : Puppy Dog Lies

The first time Gabriel and Juan had actually met had been about a year after he and Abbey had finished basic. By then he'd more or less considered her to be his family (the first member of his chosen family), and he'd been skeptical about what kind of person she would date, let alone the kind of person she would want to marry.

She just didn't seem the type, any more than Gabriel had considered himself the type. (But that had been before Jack. Before he had considered for even a second that someone other than the black ops teams he'd fallen in with would ever see him.)

He had assumed early on that Abbey had picked up a freeloader of some kind. He was vaguely aware her family had money, though Abbey had forfeited it when she joined the military instead of going to school, and he did know that Abbey sent her pay back to the man. She'd never been very good at managing her funds, that Gabriel knew from how often they drank and partied off base, so if the mysterious Juan was squandering whatever he got from her, Gabriel doubted she would have noticed.

Abbey was also, at the core of it, dangerous. Not just dangerous in the way all soldiers were dangerous, but in the way that made Gabriel wonder how she made it through the psyche screening.

Probably because she was the kind of person Kaplan wanted, but that wasn't high praise for what a spouse might want. Especially not the kind of spouse who was studying to be a social worker.

When they'd arrived (all those years ago) it had been Halloween. It hadn't  _ just  _ been Abbey and Gabriel, because she'd insisted that their entire squad go, and that it had to be in costume. Gabriel hadn't minded that part, because he'd always loved Halloween, and it had been ages since he'd celebrated it.

His father had made him the most amazing costumes when he was little. Halloween always reminded him of that time in his life. 

Well, that and Gabriel never could turn down candy.

He'd gone with something simple that first time - not realising what he was stepping into - and dressed up as a crappy store bought Dracula. When Abbey saw him she'd given him a scowl usually reserved for incompetent gun maintenance.

“That is so fucking lame, Gabi. I can't let you go like that.” She hadn't had anything at the base, but she had done a pretty killer job on his makeup.

She'd gone as some stripper from an old grimdark comic book movie, wearing a cowboy hat and a blond wig that had been weird to see her in. Abbey had been built long before SEP had gotten their hands on her, and had never been shy, but New York was also cold, which had been Gabriel’s primary concern back then. She'd just brushed him off, laughing about his concerns.

“Party's inside, and if you think I'm seeing my husband for the first time in months dressed as a nun, then your sex life is even more boring than I thought it was.”

At the time, the last part had been more or less accurate. Gabriel's relationships lasted a few weeks at most, usually of his own volition, but partly because of the lifestyle he and the early Court had adopted. They didn't stay in one place for very long, and the nature of their work didn't promote open healthy communication.

“Whatever makes you happy, asshole.” He'd laughed. “It's your party.”

“You're goddamn right.”

And what a party it had been.

That had always been Juan's thing, as it turned out. He'd lived in the area his entire life, and had been one of the primary organizers when it came to getting the neighborhood together for most major holidays since he was a teenager. Halloween was no exception - as it turned out it was sort of the main event. Gabriel had gone every year after that, tagging along with Abbey to one of the few places that actually felt like home. Every apartment was done up with decorations, lights, and pumpkins, with carving contests and music that practically shut down four blocks.

They'd lost half the Squad to various events and parties before Gabe and Abbey even reached the venue where Juan's band played - a strip club called “Velvet Kingdom” that was just as tacky as it sounded. They did get into it though, with the strippers dressed up in various sexy monster costumes and bouncers wearing slasher movie masks. They even held a naked apple bobbing contest, which was a sold out event, as it turned out.

Then, there was Juan’s band. Gabriel had heard plenty of mariachi bands growing up - his grandmother had held fast to their heritage where his mother and father had rejected it. The ones he’d heard were  _ nothing _ like Juan’s band.

Which was to say, talented.

Or so he’d believed at the time, anyway. He’d been a little drunk, smoked way too much weed with Abbey before they’d gotten there, and he was fairly certain that weed was not the only thing in what he smoked. For that moment, though, the music had been transcendent to him. The combination of joy, laughter, good cheer – and probably also naked bodies - had made him feel light. Relaxed.

Like for the first time in a long time, he knew what a family was supposed to act like.

Abbey had just laughed, shaken Gabriel’s shoulders, shouted, “Juan you son of a bitch, you did it! You were supposed to wait for me!” She’d rushed through the crowd, leapt up on stage, and pushed Juan’s face between her hands, laughing at him. “You promised when you got rid of your chest, I could keep the leftovers, baby!  _ Fuck _ you!”

The rest of the night had been a blur. He remembered a lot more drinking, a lot more naked bodies, and a lot of dancing. The thrumming of a guitar, the bump and grind between him, the strippers, other patrons, Abbey, Juan, the team… the laughter, and the blur after a half dozen shots and too much whiskey. A bull riding contest had been in there somewhere, and Abbey’s cowgirl hat had been passed around to dozens who tried to hold on as long as they could. Gabriel had no idea who’d won, but he remembered the sailing feeling when he’d been thrown off. He remembered Abbey pulling him up by his ankles and shaking out his pockets for change. He remembered more dancing, something he usually hated, but which seemed right at the time.  _ Everything _ he’d done that night had seemed right. He’d laughed, let strippers pour shots over his chest to lick them off while Abbey did the same beside him and Juan threw dollar bills at them. He had a brief memory of Juan riding his shoulders. His last coherent memory from the night had been doing a keg stand while Abbey smoked a cigar over him, chanting ‘chug, chug, chug, chug’, and then there was nothing clear.

Except one thing. A blue door, with two shitty little chickens painted beside the peep hole. He got used to the blue door, over the years. Abbey and Juan’s crappy condo, where he’d slept on the couch at least two or three times a year, until he’d joined SEP.

And so, standing in front of that same door now, Gabriel felt like his guts were going to slide out through his urethra. Jack was right; he didn’t have a plan for talking to Juan, and he didn’t have any excuses that quite covered “Sorry I never called after your wife died” - and because Juan  _ mattered _ to him, he couldn’t think of a convenient enough lie.

Instead, he stood in front of the door, hand raised, wondering how long he would have to stand there before Jack would think he was an absolute lunatic who had completely lost his mind.

He lowered his hand, sighing and running his hands over his scalp. Itchy as hell, with the bandage on his hand. Jack was watching from the car. Gabriel hadn’t wanted him to come, not so much because he thought it would be better or worse with Jack in the room, but because…

Because if it went bad, and Abbey wasn’t there, he didn’t need Jack to see the fallout. And if it went well, and Abbey  _ was _ there, he needed to be the one to talk to her.

Gabriel took a deep breath, closing his eyes.  _ His name is Jack Morrison, he is alive. You are going to see Juan Goldman, and he is alive. Your name is Gabriel Reyes, you are alive. _

He knocked, and he waited.

…and he waited.

Gabriel frowned deeply, knocking again.

Nothing.

He glanced back at the car where Jack waited, then back at the door. This time, he pounded on the door. “Juan! Come on, open up, it’s Gabe!”  He gnawed on his lip. It was Sunday, so unlikely that Juan would be working. Midday, so unlikely that he’d be sleeping. He hit the door again. “Juan, I know you’re in there! Open up!”

Except he had no idea if Juan was in there. He could have moved, for all Gabe knew.

He was about to start hitting the door again when it opened abruptly, and Juan made his appearance, though Gabriel barely recognized him. He looked  _ rough _ , gaunt and with an uneven and patchy beard. Still, when he looked at Gabriel, even with his eyes unfocused and blurry, a grin split his face. “You’re here! I knew you’d come, get inside, get inside…” He stepped forward, glancing around as though they were being watched.

Which, Gabriel supposed, they were. Just likely not by the person Juan thought they were.

He stepped inside, cringing at the smell of the house - and the sight of it. Juan had always kept the place relatively clean, but now there seemed to be a thick layer of dust over most things, and empty plates with half finished meals where there wasn’t. The walls were covered in newspapers clippings, all about the Omnic Crisis and the Overwatch response. Small things were circled and highlighted - locations, it looked like, though Gabriel couldn’t fathom why.

“You like it?” Juan asked, following Gabriel’s gaze and grinning. “I’ve been mapping where you’ve been. I figured I should know. Kind of gives me good vacation ideas for some time after the war, huh?”

Gabriel frowned, deeply. He hadn’t known exactly what he was expecting, but this was… far from it. “Juan, what the hell is all this? You’ve just been tracking Overwatch’s movements? Why?”

Juan blinked, frowning deeply. “I… oh, I made coffee. You want some? There’s, uh, only enough for me, but you can have it if you want. Wasn’t expecting company.” He started to move away - but Gabriel caught his arm with his good hand.

“Juan, seriously. It’s just you and me here,” Gabriel said, holding on tight. “What the hell is going on? You look like shit, you’ve been tracking Overwatch’s movement… what are you doing?”

Juan stared at him, blinking slowly, like he wasn’t quite comprehending what he was seeing. “You… this is why you came, isn’t it?” He pointed at the wall. “To bring her back. She can come home now. That’s why you’re here,  _ isn’t it _ ?”

The tone of Juan’s voice got tighter, more intense, and more desperate the longer he spoke. The more he said, the worse Gabriel felt, his guts twisting.

“Why…  _ why _ would you think that?” Gabriel asked, standing dumbstruck in the middle of the room. “You think… did you think I was hiding her from  _ you _ ?”

Juan’s fists clenched, and he started taking quick, shallow breaths, his teeth grinding as he glared at Gabriel. “She went with you. She went  _ for _ you. She’d do anything for you. Even hide from me, if it was for the mission, for  _ your _ mission! She doesn’t give a shit about anyone but family! She would only abandon me if you asked her to!” He grabbed one of the mugs from the counter, throwing it in Gabriel’s direction.

It wasn’t hard to dodge, but Gabriel almost didn’t.

He heard the ceramic shatter behind him and fought not to sit down. Or at even lay down.

Abbey wasn’t there. She never had been.

“Why else wouldn’t you be at the funeral!? Why else wouldn’t you be there for me, when I needed you!?” Juan snapped, each word a crushing weight on Gabriel’s chest. “The only reason you wouldn’t be there… The only reason you wouldn’t be there is if she wasn’t dead! If she was with you! SHE HAD TO BE WITH YOU!”

Gabriel didn’t remember his first actual meeting with Juan very well. He remembered the laughing, and the drinking, and the pictures on his phone gave him an idea the following morning of what kind of person Juan was.

He’d woken up on their couch, with a glass of water beside him, with Abbey’s garbage handwriting saying “drink me” on a note beside it. In the same apartment, cleaner back then, but with everything in the same place. Juan had an acoustic guitar on the wall, and for the first time since the army, Gabriel had tried his hand at playing it.

Damn thing had even been in tune, though Gabriel’s playing had been... less so.

“Not bad, but you could use some practice,” Juan had laughed from his bedroom door. “Give me a minute, I’ll grab my spare. We can jam for a bit, while Abs sleeps off her hangover.”

Gabriel had understood back then, just like he did just then, what Abbey had loved about Juan. He was  _ good _ . Like Jack was good. Like Ana was good.

Gabriel and Abbey were just the shitty people who clung to them, hoping a little bit of that would rub off on the darkness they brought with them everywhere they went.

Abbey ruined him. The same way Gabriel knew he could ruin Jack. That maybe he already had just by trying to keep Jack alive.

“Juan… I didn’t go to Abbey’s funeral because I let you down,” Gabriel said, the bitter realization sinking in. Abbey wasn’t there. He’d hadn’t seen Juan because he was afraid to face that he hadn’t been there for someone he loved. He hadn’t saved Abbey.

What if he couldn’t save Jack either?

“I didn’t go because I told you I’d keep her safe. I told you I’d always have her back. I didn’t.” Gabriel shrugged helplessly, wishing that he’d let Juan hit him. “I didn’t know… I didn’t think you’d think-”

“Get out,” Juan said, his voice shaking with rage, tears running down his cheek. Gabriel had never seen him so angry. Or so sad.

“Juan, I didn’t do it to hurt-”

“YOU DID!” Juan roared, punching the wall. His fist wasn’t like Gabriel’s, or Jack’s. It made a horrible sound when it connected. “I let you into my house! You were like  _ family _ to me! I gave you everything!” He yanked his hand from the wall, reaching out and grabbing his guitar from beside the counter.

That was the next thing he threw at Gabriel, and this time Gabriel didn’t move. It didn’t even hurt - except when the guitar shattered against him, he felt a string snap and scratch along his cheek. It healed almost as quickly as it left a mark.

All Gabriel could think of was that first morning. Juan chuckling, reminding him of the chords he hadn’t practiced in ages. “ _ Come on, Gabe, you’ve got some real talent. You know the band could use a guitarist, huh? _ ”

“Juan… I’m sorry,” Gabriel said, stepping back. “I didn’t come here for… for this…” Not to see what he and Abbey left behind. It was just a shallow reflection of the family he’d had, once upon a time.

“Then what did you come here for!?” Juan demanded, his shoulders sinking, but the fury still in his eyes. “What do you want from me?”

When he’d come, Gabriel had thought it would be easy to say. Easy to demand.  _ Where’s Abbey? _ But if Abbey hadn’t come to Juan, that meant Jack was right, didn’t it? If she hadn’t come to him, and she hadn’t gone to her husband, where would she go, if she had a mind to do anything at all?

But then again, why would she have killed Erikson the way he’d gone down if…

“I just…” Gabriel raised his bad hand, waving it briefly. “I just wanted to say hi. That you deserved something, after all this time.”

Juan stared at him, then shook his head, tilting his head back. “I have never… wanted to see anyone… less than I want to see you right now. Get. The fuck. Out of my house.”

“ _ You’re always welcome here, Gabriel _ .”

“Don’t you fucking dare come back.”

~~

“Well, is she alright?” Jack demanded into the communicator, eyes on the door, waiting for Gabriel. “And Reinhardt? What about him?”

“They’re both alright. Or, well, more or less alright.” Torbjorn sighed loudly on the other end. “They’re alive, anyway. We need you two back, and sooner rather than later.”

“But this mystery guest was looking for us?” Jack asked, biting his lip. If it was Abbey, and she had been in Canada, then there was no point in looking for her in New York. If it was her at all.

“Whoever they were, they said… some strange things,” Torbjorn said, hesitating briefly. “That I would do as a ‘consolation prize.’ But they almost ignored Ana and Reinhardt, or would have if they’d stopped attacking him. Her? Them? It wasn’t really easy to tell.”

“More like impossible to tell, from what I’m getting,” Jack said, lifting his feet onto the rental’s dashboard. “We’ll be back soon. There are some things here we need to take care of. They probably won’t attack you again if they know we’re not there, and Gabe’s still not at a hundred percent yet.”

Or even fifty percent. If it came down to a knock down drag out fight with Gabriel in the kind of shape he was in, and against – if it was Abbey – someone he loved?

_ It’s not her. Abbey wouldn’t try and hurt Gabriel. She has no reason to want Torbjorn dead. _ Except on the argument that Torbjorn had worked on the Omnics in the first place. Which led back to revenge; the only motive they sort of had.

“Well, he needs to be. So do you,” Torbjorn said, his voice wavering for a moment. “The way they moved, Jack… it wasn’t like a normal person does. It was like you and Gabe. That’s the only time I’ve seen anyone do what they did.”

_ Fuck _ . Jack leaned back in his seat, looking back at the door again. Still no Gabe. “Someone from SEP, then. That’s what you think.”

“I’m an engineer, Jack, not a doctor, but the thought did cross my mind. Any old colleagues of yours who might want to kill you? Or Gabriel? It started in his room.”

_ Where Abbey would have known I would be. Or at least thought I would be. _ Jack scratched at the stubble on his chin, his fingers digging in until he could feel his nails breaking skin. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right, but there was a lot of evidence that said Abbey was a prime suspect.

“Torb, humor me for something,” Jack said, trying to think. He didn’t have a tactical mind like Gabriel did. He’d always been the last person to figure out the “who done it” in mystery TV shows and books. But he did like to think he was pretty good at understanding people – or he had before Gabriel had proven otherwise.

But he remembered the day Gabriel had come back to SEP after his final assassination. He remembered how  _ upset _ Gabriel had been. And he remembered Abbey, for all Gabriel warned about her bad side, had told him to get a copy of  _ Nightmare Before Christmas _ to cheer Gabriel up.

No matter what Gabriel thought, she would never hurt him on purpose.

“When you have a chance, can you look into the old Omnium in New Mexico? It would have been destroyed about a year and a half ago by the US army, it was back when you and Ana-”

“-were learning about the structure of the Omniums and the Titan launches. Aye, I remember. Why that one?” Torbjorn asked.

“There’s something… I just have a feeling about.” Gabriel’s feeling, really, but Torbjorn didn’t need to know. “I just need to know what the Omnic activity around there has been like lately. Or if anyone has been going missing.”

“Missing? Jack, what the hell-” Torbjorn started, but then Jack saw Gabriel leaving the apartment.

‘Leaving’ was generous, because the door slammed open, and Jack caught a brief look at Juan as he hurled something that might have been a glass out the door after Gabriel. The door banged shut briefly before it opened again, Juan re-emerging to watch Gabriel leave, and shout something else at him. It was all in Spanish, but Jack caught one English word, right before Gabriel reached the car.

“Traitor!”

“I have to go,” Jack said, uncertain what else Torbjorn had said, but it had definitely been something. “Torb, just look into it for me. We’ll be back soon.”

“Jack what’s all that screaming? Are you al-” Jack hung up on him, reaching over and opening the door to the car.

“Come on, let’s get going,” Jack said, glancing up to the balcony where Juan had reappeared. He wasn’t screaming anymore, but he didn’t look happy. He also looked like shit, nothing close to the way he had when Jack had first met him two years before. No well-groomed beard, wearing a dirty shirt and stained pants… and he looked down at Gabriel with disgust.

It was a little too much like looking in the mirror after his last fight with Gabriel.

“Buckle in,” Jack said, dialing in for their hotel and letting the automated car take them away.

Gabriel sank into his chair, bandaged hand resting on his legs. He didn’t say anything, but he did buckle in as Jack requested. From the way Juan had been acting, Jack would have expected Gabriel to be furious. Instead he just stared out the window, running his finger over his bandaged hand.

Jack looked out the window, then back at Gabriel, then at his hand - and then at a smudge of blood on his face. “So, she wasn’t there, I take it?”

“Fuck off, Jack. I can’t right now,” Gabriel mumbled, closing his eyes and resting his head against the window. They sat in silence a little while longer, while Jack tried to run through a list of things he wanted to say. Something he could say.

Gabriel filled it in.

“She wasn’t there. Juan thought she was with me,” Gabriel said, not opening his eyes. “He thought that was why I didn’t go to the funeral. That she’d run off with me to join Overwatch as some covert ops hitwoman. I did that to him. I ruined his-”

“You didn’t,” Jack put his hand on Gabriel’s stroking up his wrist. Suddenly how angry he’d been didn’t matter. “Everyone grieves in their own way. You both made choices… he could have sent you an email. Called. Texted you. Something. He didn’t.”

“I didn’t call him either. I wasn’t there when he needed me. And now I think I’ve lost him forever.” Jack had a feeling that this conversation had several layers. “She wasn’t there.”

Jack ran his thumb along Gabriel’s wrist, biting his lip. False hope had to be better than no hope, didn’t it?

“Listen, Gabe, last night there was an attack at the Canadian embassy. I just got off the call with Torbjorn about it.” That made Gabriel open his eyes and turn around to look at him. “Ana found them in my bedroom, whoever this… person was. But they started with yours. Whoever they were, they came to kill us.”

“Them? Who is  _ them _ ?” Gabriel asked, his skin warm under Jack’s fingers.

“They escaped, so Torbjorn doesn’t know exactly, but it was one person who kicked the shit out of Ana and Reinhardt. Single handed. Even if Reinhardt has a concussion and Ana had a broken rib, they could still take down four or five Omnics… One person, though?”

“One person has to be us,” Gabriel said, rubbing at his beard with his free hand.  “Someone is trying to kill us. I have to call Okoye. If it’s Abbey then she needs to protect herself, she needs to-”

“You need to rest,” Jack said, reaching across the seat, running his hand over Gabriel’s cheek.  _ Mistake. I’m making a mistake.  _ But Gabriel needed him. “We can go back and check the security footage, and you can get your hand fixed up. And you can just… just rest.”

“I don’t want to rest, Jackie,” Gabriel said, leaning across the centre console. “I don’t want to keep doing this song and dance. I don’t want to keep thinking my best friend is still alive, and I don’t want to know that I lost Juan… and that I lost you. I don’t want to do this without you. I  _ can’t _ do this without you.”

Jack wasn’t entirely sure who kissed who first. He might have leaned in, he might not have, but he knew he wanted to. He wanted Gabe. The warmth of his lips and the touch of his skin. The way Gabriel’s hand moved to the back of his head, not holding him in place – not yet anyway. At that moment, the touch was purely comforting.

So was opening his mouth, letting Gabriel’s tongue slip inside, and the hot breath when he pulled away. So was Jack’s hand against Gabriel’s skin, untucking his shirt just enough to run his fingers over his stomach, stopping just at the bandage where the stitches were keeping his guts from falling out.

Jack didn’t move his hand, but he pulled back from the kiss, feeling Gabriel’s teeth brush against his lip. “Maybe we should, uh, hold off, on anything… drastic. Until you get the stitches out.”

Jack really needed to think, and he couldn’t think with his hand on Gabriel’s bare skin and Gabriel looking him right in the eye and being so sad. He just looked so fucking  _ sad _ . His eyes were soft and glassy, like he might actually…

“Gabe…,hey…” Jack reached up, brushing under Gabriel’s eyes. Shit, he was actually crying.

“No, it’s…” Gabriel sniffed, shaking his head and wiping his eyes. “It’s just been a really shitty couple of weeks, Jackie. And it’s not your fault, it’s just-”

Jack leaned in and kissed him again, going as far as the seat belt would let him. He put both his hands on the back of Gabriel’s head, holding him in place. He wrapped his fingers in Gabriel’s hair, breathed Gabriel’s breath, and tasted his lips again, but it wasn’t peaceful. When Jack pulled back and kissed Gabriel’s cheeks and tasted salt and tears, it felt like he was keeping back a storm.

“Jack…” Gabriel whispered, breathy, his voice barely audible. “Jack…”

“I’m not leaving you. You hear me? I’m not going to leave you,” Jack said, a promise he knew he shouldn’t make. Gabriel had fucked up long before everything else had started. But…

_ I just want him _ .

Jack would always want him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Light at the end of the tunnel...
> 
> Thank you to Aisu for their continued support in fixing my shitty grammar!
> 
> Questions? Concerns? A need to celebrate that Jack's ACTUALLY everyone's favorite gay dad? Come and chat with me at http://youredgedadsareshowing.tumblr.com/, or come and find me on Twitter @TheJudgeCoffee
> 
> Happy New Year everyone!


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